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THE ESCAPING CLUB 



/ 

By 

A. J. EVANS 




THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY 

Publishers x New York 



G^ 



Copyright 1922 by 
THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY 

All Rights Reserved 



PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. 



APR 14 1922 (U 

©CI.A659617 
i i 



TO 

MY MOTHEE 

WHO, BY ENCOURAGEMENT AND DIEECT 
ASSISTANCE, WAS LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR 
MY ESCAPE FROM GERMANY, I DEDICATE THIS 
BOOK, WHICH WAS WRITTEN AT HER REQUEST, 



CONTENTS 



PART I 

CHAP. 

I. Captube . . . i 

II. GUTERSLOH AND CLAUSTHAL 

III. The First Evasion 

IV. What Happened to Kicq 
V. The Frontier . . , 

VI. Payins the Piper 
VII. Removal to a Strafe Camp 
VIII. Fort 9, Insolstadt 
IX. Captors and Captives 
X. Attempts to Escape 
XI. An Escape with Medlicott 
XII. Short Rations and Many Riots 

XIII. A Tunnel Scheme 

XIV. The Bojah Case 
XV. The Last op Fort 9 

XVI. We Escape 



* B 


PAGE 
3 


• • 


. 12 


• • 


, 21 


• • 


. 26 


• • 


. 35 


• S 


. 48 


• • 


. 56 


• * 


. 67 


• 


. 87 


* • * 


103 


• • 


127 


s 


139 


• «i < 


149 


• i « 


163 


n • « 


172 


• • . 


182 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

XVII. Through Bavaria by Night . .199 

XVIII. Through Wurtemberg to the Frontier . 213 

XIX. Freedom . . . . '. . .230 

PART II 

I. Arabs, Turks, and Germans . . . 241 
II. One more Run . . .... 257 

III. To Afion via Constantinople . . . 284 

IV. The Round Tour Concluded . . . 300 



ILLTTSTEATIONS 

PAGE 

Sketch-Map of Clausthal ... ^ - 20 

Sketch-Map of Fort 9, Ingolstadt . . . 102 
Sketch-Map Showing Route of Escape from 

Germany . 188 

Sketch-Map Showing Plan of Escape in Palestine 210 



PAETI 



THE ESCAPING CLUB 

CHAPTER I 

CAPTURE 

FOR over three months 1 No. 3 Squadron had been 
occupied daily in ranging the heavy guns which 
night after night crept into their allotted positions 
in front of Albert. On July 1st 1916 the S online offensive 
opened with gas and smoke and a bombardment of unprec- 
edented severity. To the pilots and observers in an artil- 
lery squadron the beginning of this battle brought a certain 
relief, for we were rather tired of flying up and down, 
being shot at continually by fairly accurate and remarkably 
well hidden anti-aircraft batteries, while we registered end- 
less guns on uninteresting points. On the German side of 
the trenches, before the battle, the country seemed almost 
peaceful and deserted. Anti-aircraft shells arrived and 
burst in large numbers, coming apparently from nowhere, 
for it was almost rare to see a flash on the German side ; if 
one did, it was probably a dummy flash ; and of movement, 
except for a few trains in the distance, there was none. 
Only an expert observer would know that the thin straight 
line was a light railway; that the white lines were paths 
made by the ration parties and reliefs following the dead 

3 



4 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

ground when they came up at night ; that the almost invis- 
ible line was a sunken pipe line for bringing water to the 
trenches, and that the shading which crept and thickened 
along the German reserve trenches showed that the German 
working parties were active at night if invisible in the 
day time. For the shading spelt barbed wire. 

Only about half a dozen times during those three months 
did I have the luck to catch a German battery firing. 
When that happened one ceased the ranging work and 
called up something really heavy, for preference a nine- 
inch howitzer battery, which pulverised the Hun. 

"When the battle had started the counter-battery work 
became our main task. It was wonderfully exciting and 
interesting. Nothing can give a more solid feeling of satis- 
faction than when, after seeing the shells from the battery 
you are directing fall closer and closer to the target, you 
finally see a great explosion in a German gun-pit, and with 
a clear conscience can signal " O.K." During the battle 
we were much less worried by the anti-aircraft than we had 
been before. For some had been knocked out, some had 
retreated, and some had run out of ammunition, and in any 
case there were so many British planes to shoot at that they 
could not give to any one their undivided attention. 

Up to July 16th, and possibly later, for I was captured 
on that day, German aeroplanes were remarkably scarce, 
and never interfered with us at our work. If one wished 
to find a German plane, it was necessary to go ten miles 
over the German lines, and alone. Even under these con- 
ditions the Germans avoided a fight if they could. 

Shortly after the beginning of the battle, Long, my 



CAPTUKE 5 

observer, and I were given a special job. We went up 
only at the direct orders of our Brigadier and did a con- 
tinuous series of short reconnaissances as far over the lines 
as Bapaume and as far south as Cambrai. We had several 
fights, of which only the last, on July 14th, when we shot 
down our opponent after a manoeuvring fight lasting about 
ten minutes, has a direct bearing on our capture. The end 
of this fight came when, for perhaps twenty seconds, we 
flew side by side, and at the same time as Long shot down 
our opponent, he riddled us with bullets, and I was very 
lucky to get home without the machine catching fire. My 
machine was too bad to be repaired, and they sent me a 
second one from the Aviation Park. This seemed a 
splendid machine, and I can only attribute the failure of 
the engine, which led to our capture, to a bullet in the 
magneto or petrol tank, probably the former. Whatever 
the cause, on July 16th, during an early morning recon- 
naissance, the engine suddenly stopped dead at 4000 feet. 
We must have been just N.E. of Bapaume, ten miles over 
the line, at the time, and I turned her head for home 
and did all I could ; but there is very little one can do if 
the engine stops. After coming down a couple of thou- 
sand feet I began to look about for a landing-place away 
from houses and near a wood if possible, and told Long 
to get out matches. Just at that moment the fiery rocket 
battery near the one sausage balloon, which remained to 
the Germans after the anti-balloon offensive of July 4th, 
opened fire on us, and I had to dodge to avoid the rockets. 
By the time they had stopped firing at us we were about 
500 feet from the ground, and I heard a good deal of 



6 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

rifle fire, apparently at us. As my engine showed no 
signs of coming to life again, I picked out an open field 
where I thought we should have time to set fire to the 
machine in comfort before the Germans came up. I was 
only up about 200 feet or less when I found we were 
landing almost on top of a German battery, of whose 
existence I had had no idea. I don't think the position 
of this battery was known to our people, but I may be 
wrong, as I temporarily lost my bearings while dodging 
those infernal rockets. As soldiers from the battery could 
be seen running out with rifles in their hands towards the 
spot where we obviously had to land, and as I much 
doubted whether we should have time to fire the machine, 
I determined when I was about 50 feet from the ground 
to crash the machine on landing. This I managed pretty 
successfully by ramming her nose into the ground instead 
of hold her off, and we had a bad crash. 

I found myself hanging upside down by my belt. I 
was a bit shaken but unhurt, and got out quickly. Long 
was staggering about in a very dazed condition near the 
machine, and the Germans were about 50 yards away. I 
got a matchbox from him and crawled under the machine 
again, but found, firstly, that I could not reach the petrol 
tap, and in spite of the machine being upside down, there 
was no petrol dripping anywhere ; and, secondly, that Long 
in his dazed condition had handed me a box without any 
matches in it. The Germans were now about 25 yards 
off, and I thought of trying to set the thing on fire with the 
Lewis gun and tracer bullets, but I could not find the gun. 
I think Long must have thrown it overboard as we came 



CAPTUKE 1 

down. We were then surrounded by soldiers — they were 
a filthy crowd, but showed no signs of unpleasantness. 
An officer, whose face I disliked, came up, and, saluting 
very correctly, asked me to hand over all my papers and 
maps. Eather than be searched, I turned out my own 
and Long's pockets for him. In doing so, I found to 
my horror that I had my diary on me! Why, I can't 
think, as I was always most careful to go up without 
any paper of importance, and particularly without my 
diary. However, I managed to keep it from the Germans, 
and got rid of it about an hour later without being 
detected. We walked with the German officer to the 
Gondecourt road, and I was glad to see as we went away, 
that the machine seemed thoroughly smashed up. The 
propeller was smashed and nose plate obviously bent badly ; 
one wing and the under carriage were crumpled up. The 
elevator was* broken, and it looked as if something had 
gone in the fuselage, but I could not be certain of that. 
Long was thoroughly shaken, and walked and talked like 
a drunken man. He kept on asking questions, which he 
reiterated in the most maddening way — poor chap — but to 
be asked every two minutes if you had been captured, when 
you are surrounded by a crowd of beastly Huns . . ! 
I own I was feeling pretty irritable at the time, and per- 
haps a bit shaken. It took Long several days to become 
anything like normal again, and I don't think he was 
completely right in his mind again for weeks. He was 
obviously suffering from concussion, and I think that he 
now remembers nothing of the smash nor of any events 
which took place for several hours afterwards. 



8 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

About 7 a.m., as far as I remember, a staff car picked us 
up and took us to Le Transloy. We were taken to one of 
the bouses and given a couple of cbairs in tbe yard. Tbe 
place was apparently an H.Q., but wbat H.Q. I could not 
find out. I bad seen about twelve Englisb soldiers under 
guard as we came in, and after waiting for about two bours, 
we were marcbed off witb tbem under escort of balf a dozen 
mounted Ublans. It was> a pretty bot day, and we were 
botb of us in very beavy flying kit and boots. Long was 
still mucb sbaken, and walked witb difficulty ; in fact, I am 
doubtful wbetber be could bave walked at all witbout my 
belp. I amused myself talking to tbe guard and telling 
tbem bow many prisoners and guns, etc., we bad taken. 
After a marcb of several bours we reacbed Velu, very tired 
indeed. One incident wbicb bappened on tbe road is per- 
baps of interest. A woman waved to us in a field as we 
went by. I waved back, and tbis barmless action was 
instantly reported by one of tbe guard to an N.C.O., wbo 
rode back after tbe woman ; but sbe, knowing tbe Germans 
better tban we did, bad disappeared by tbe time be bad 
got tbere. 

We bad been at Velu for an bour or more wben a crowd 
of orderlies learnt tbat we were officer aviators. Tbey 
collected around us and assumed rather a threatening 
attitude, accusing us of baving tbrown bombs on to a 
bospital train a few days before. Tbis was unfortunately 
true as far as Long was concerned, but as tbe train bad no 
red cross on it, and was used to bring up troops as well 
as to take away wounded, we bad a perfect rigbt to bomb 
it, and anybow could not possibly bave told it was a 



CAPTURE 9 

hospital train. However, this was not the time for com- 
plicated explanations, so I lied hard for a very uncom- 
fortable ten minutes. Just when things were looking 
really nasty an officer came up and took us off. We got 
into a staff car with him and were taken to Havrincourt 
to a big chateau — the H.Q. of the VI. Corps, I think. 

A young flying corps officer who spoke a little English 
came to question us. He seemed a very nice fellow, and 
was full of praise for the audacity of the R.F.C. and most 
interested to learn that Long had dropped the wreath for 
Immelmann. This wreath had been dropped on a German 
aerodrome a few days before, as an official token of the 
respect which the R.F.C. had felt for a great pilot. 

On our journey to Cambrai we had three or four guards 
in the horse truck with us, but as it was a hot night the 
sliding door was left half open on one side, and about a 
foot on the other. If we had made a dash for it, we might 
have got clear away, but after discussing the scheme I 
rejected it, as Long was quite unfit for anything of 
the sort 

Some time before midnight we entered Cambrai fort. 
It Cambrai station I saw a train crammed with German 
wounded, and there were no red crosses marked on the 
train. The condition of the wounded in this train was 
very bad — extremely crowded and dirty. 

We remained in Cambrai five or six days, and were 
rather uncomfortable and rather short of food, but a kind 
French lady in the town sent us in some of the necessities 
of life — tooth-brushes, shirts, socks, etc. The sleeping 



10 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

accommodation was not luxurious, but the blankets were 
not verminous, which was something to be thankful for. 

Whilst we were at Cambrai a German Intelligence officer 
took me to his room and had a long conversation with me. 
I refused to answer questions, so we discussed the war in 
general — who started it, the invasion of Belgium, our use 
of black troops, war in the colonies, about which he was 
particularly angry, quite forgetting, as I pointed out, that 
they began it by instigating rebellion in South Africa. He 
suggested that the Somme was an expensive failure, so I 
said, "What about Verdun?" Although I made one or 
two hits, he had his facts' more at his fingers' ends than I 
had, and I think honors were about even ! 

]SText day he took Long and myself off in a car and 
showed us over the Eokker squadron at Cambrai. The 
two pilots next for duty sat in their flying kit, in deck 
chairs, by the side of their planes and read novels ; close 
behind them was a telephone in communication with the 
balloons, who notified them when the enemy aircraft 
ventured far over the lines. It seemed to me a pretty 
efficient (arrangement, but of course suitable only for 
defensive and not for offensive tactics. 

After we had been five or six days at Cambrai, and the 
number of prisoners had increased to nearly a thousand 
men and about a dozen officers, we were moved by train, the 
officers to Giitersloh, and the men, I think, to Minister. I 
cannot remember how long the journey took — about thirty 
hours, I believe. I am sure we had one night in the train, 
and I remember a good feed they gave us at a wayside 
station. I also remember remonstrating with a German 



CAPTURE 11 

officer, O.C. train, because lie insisted on keeping shut the 
doors of the horse trucks in which the men were, causing 
them to be nearly suffocated with heat. During the 
journey I was rather surprised to find that we were 
nowhere insulted or cursed— very different to the terrible 
experiences of our early prisoners. Only in one station 
a poor devil, just off to the front in a crowded cattle truck, 
put his head in our carriage window and cursed the 
"verfluchte Schweinhunde" who were traveling second 
class and smoking cigars. After a reasonably comfortable 
journey we came to the prisoners-of-war camp at Giitersloh. 



CHAPTER II 

GUTEESLOH AND CLAUSTEAL 

I BELIEVE the camp at Giitersloh liad formerly been a 
lunatic aslym. It was composed of six or seven 
large independent barrack-like buildings. One of 
these buildings was a civilian camp, and one was a quaran- 
tine, used also as a solitary confinement or Stubenarrest 
prison; another was used as the quarters of the com- 
mandant. The ground was sandy, and I should think 
comparatively healthy and dry even in the wettest weather. 
In hot weather the heat was much accentuated, but there 
were patches of small pine trees in the camp which gave a 
pleasant shade. The camp area could not have been less 
than eight acres altogether, enclosed by two rows of 
barbed wire, with arc lamps every seventy yards or so. 
The prisoners comprised some 1200 officers — 800 Russians, 
over 100 English, and the rest French or Belgians. We 
were marched up to the camp through a quiet village, and 
were put into the quarantine, where we remained for about 
a week. The morning after our arrival, we were medi- 
cally inspected and questioned as to our name, rank, 
regiment, place of capture, age, where taught to fly, etc., 
all of which questions evoked a variety of mendacious and 

romantic answers. We were then put to bed in the 

12 



GUTEESLOH AND CLAUSTHAL 13 

quarantine and treated with some beastly anti-lice powder 
—most disagreeable! The food was insufficient in quar- 
antine. We had no opportunity of taking exercise, and 
were all much bored and longed to be sent into the main 
camp, which we were told was the best in Germany. 
This was not far off the truth, as subsequent experience 
proved the administration and internal arrangements of 
this camp to be admirable. 

^ Originally English, Russian, and French prisoners had 
lived all mixed up together, but now the nationalities were 
mainly in separate buildings, and always in separate 
rooms. In the English building there was a common room 
in which there was a daily English paper and two 
monthly magazines, all typewritten in the camp. From 
an artistic point of view the magazines were excellent, 
rather after the style of Printer's Pie, and the daily paper 
consisted of leading articles, correspondence, and transla- 
tions out of German papers. 

The canteen was very well run by a Russian on the 
co-operative share system, but when I was there it was 
becoming more and more difficult to buy goods in Germany. 
I don't think any food could be bought in the canteen, but 
wine, and, I think, whisky also, could be obtained, as well 
as tennis racquets, knives, books, pencils, boxes, and 
tobacco of all sorts. 

The feeding in the camp was very bad indeed, the 
quantity quite insufficient, and most of it almost uneatable. 
However, we were hungry enough to eat it with avidity 
when we first came in. 

Most wisely the Germans gave us ample facilities for 



U THE ESCAPING CLUB 

playing games in the camp. There were ten tennis courts, 
and two grounds large enough for hockey and football, so 
we spent our time in playing tennis and exchanging lessons 
in modern languages, for which of course there were unique 
opportunities. We had two roll-calls a day, which lasted 
about ten minutes each, but otherwise the Germans inter- 
fered with us very little, and I think most of us found the 
first month or two of captivity a real rest cure after the 
strain and excitement of the Somme battle. I did^ at 
any rate. 

Long and I had been less than three weeks in this place 
when all those flying officers who had been captured on the 
Somme were removed from Giitersloh to Clausthal. Look- 
ing back on the life at Giitersloh, one thing strikes me 
more now than it did whilst I was there, and that is the 
fact that all the officers, with the exception of a small 
section of the Russians, had apparently abandoned all hope 
of escaping. The defenses of the camp were not strong 
enough to be any reason for this lack of enterprise, and 
I can only attribute it to the encouragement and opportun- 
ities given by the Germans for game-playing, which suc- 
cessfully turned the thoughts of the prisoners from 
escaping. 

Of the journey to Clausthal, in the Harz Mountains, I 
only remember that it was quite comfortable, and that we 
arrived at night. The camp was about a mile up from the 
station, and we were let through a barbed wire fence and 
into a wooden barrack. For the next eight days we re- 
mained shut up in this place, and it was only with difficulty 
that we were allowed to have the windows open. There, 



GUTERSLOH AND CLAUSTHAL 15 

were three of these wooden barracks and a hotel or Kurhaus 
inside the barbed wire. This was the best German camp 
for food that I was in, and I think it would be possible 
to live on the food the Germans gave us. After eight 
days' quarantine we were let out into the camp. Long 
and I, and a captain in the E-.F.C. who had been lately 
captured, called Nichol, had a little room together in the 
wooden barrack. On the whole, life was pleasant at 
Clausthal. The Germans were very polite, and the sentries 
were generally friendly. 

We passed the time at Clausthal in much the same way 
as we had done at Giitersloh. If anything, it was more 
peaceful and pleasant, and the country surrounding the 
camp, where we sometimes went for walks, was beautiful. 
The Harz Mountains are a well-known German health 
resort, so that by the middle of September I was feeling so 
remarkably fit, and was getting such an overpowering 
aversion to being ordered about by the Germans, that, 
encouraged by a young Belgian called Kicq, I began to 
think very seriously of escaping. When I had been about 
six weeks at Clausthal I was given details by one of the con- 
spirators of a scheme for escaping from the camp by a 
tunnel. Apparently two of the party had struck work, 
and owing to this I was offered a place. I was not sur- 
prised that some one had downed tools, when I saw the 
unpleasant and water-logged hole which was to be our 
path of freedom. The idea was rather a good one, but 
it was too widely known in the camp for the scheme to 
have any chance of success, and after working it for three 
weeks we abandoned it. In the first place because the 



16 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

tunnel became half full of water, and secondly, because we 
bad reason to believe tbe Germans bad learnt of its exis^ 
tence and were waiting to catch us red-handed — a sus- 
picion which was afterwards confirmed. I was very glad, 
for there were never less than two inches of water when I 
worked there, and it was a horrible job, as all tunneling is. 
About this time Kicq suggested that we should escape 
by train, which he felt sure was possible if we were suitably 
dressed. I was of the opinion that there were too many 
difficulties in the way to make it worth while trying, but he 
eventually talked me over and told me that long train 
journeys had already been done by Frenchmen. We then 
decided that we would go for Switzerland, the general 
opinion being that it was impossible to cross the Dutch 
border, as it was guarded by electric wire, dogs, and 
several lines of sentries. It was absolutely necessary to 
our plans to have a clear start of seven or eight hours 
without an alarm, and when our tunnel had to be aban- 
doned I despaired of getting out without being seen or 
heard. Kicq, as always, was ready to try anything, and 
produced scheme after scheme, to all of which I objected. 
The real difficulty was the dogs round the camp, and 
though there were numerous ways of getting out of the 
camp, in all his schemes it was heavy odds on our being 
seen and the alarm being given. We both thought it was 
too late in the year to walk (nonsense, of course, but I 
did not know that then) ; and where should we walk to, 
since the Dutch frontier was impossible? As an English 
major said to me, "The frontier is guarded against spies 
who have friends on both sides and know every inch of 



GUTEBSLOH AND CLAUSTHAL 17 

the ground ; how can you, tired prisoners of war, with no 
maps worth having — no knowledge and no friends — hope 
to cross ?" I was further discouraged by a rumor that 
there were new railway regulations about showing passes 
which would make it quite impossible for us to travel by 
train. About that time I got into conversation with one 
of the German sentries, and bribed him with half a pat 
of butter to allow me to speak to a prisoner who was sup- 
posed to be in solitary confinement. At the end of a week 
the sentry had agreed to help me to escape, as long as the 
plan did not in any way implicate him. He told me that, 
speaking German as well as I did, I should have no diffi- 
culty in going by train, and that there were no passes to 
be shown or anything of that sort. I agreed to send 500 
marks to his wife if I got away by his help. A day or 
two later I suddenly saw the way to get out. I was walk- 
ing round with one of the tunnel conspirators at the time, 
and pointed it out to him. Then I found Kicq and told 
him we would depart on Monday. He, of course, was 
delighted, and ready to fall in with anything I might sug- 
gest. For some time our plans and preparations had been 
completed as far as possible ; money had been no obstacle, 
as there were many men in the camp who had 20 or 30 
marks, German money, and I managed to collect 80 and 
Kicq 120 marks. He had already got a civil outfit, and 
I had got a cap from an orderly. We decided not to 
take rucksacks but a traveling-bag, and I bought just the 
thing in the canteen. I was going to take an empty ruck- 
sack in the bag so that we could divide the weight after- 
wards, as we intended to walk the last 40 kilometres, We 



18 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

knew we could catch, a 2.13 a.m. train at Goslar (a small 
town about 15 kilometres due north of Clausthal), and 
after that we had to trust to luck to find trains to take us 
via Cassel to Rotweil, a village near the Swiss frontier. 
The one difficulty remaining was a suit of civilian clothes 
for me. There was an English flying officer in the camp 
whose uniform had been badly spoilt when be had been 
brought down. In consequence, he bad been allowed to 
buy a suit of civilian clothes in Cambrai. He was still 
wearing these ; in fact, he bad nothing else to wear. The 
Germans bad been most unwilling to let him continue in 
possession of these clothes, and always bad their eye on 
them and of course intended to confiscate them as soon as 
bis uniform turned up from England. This fellow agreed 
to allow me to steal his clothes. It was a most courageous 
thing to do, as be would certainly have got fourteen day's 
imprisonment for it, in spite of the evidence which would 
t© produced to prove that the clothes were stolen quite 
unknown to him. As it happened, this theft was not 
necessary, as I was able to buy a new suit in the camp 
for 20 marks. It was green, and of the cheapest possible 
material; the jacket was of the Norfolk type with a belt, 
and buttoned up high in front at the neck. A black naval 
mackintosh, some German boots, a pair of spectacles, and 
a cloth cap completed my equipment. The suit had been 
bought over a year before from a German tailor who had 
been allowed to come into the camp to do ordinary repairs. 
This fellow had brought with him a number of civilian 
suits, which had been bought up in a very short time. A 
few days afterwards the Germans got to hear of this, and 



GUTEKSLOH AND CLAUSTHAL 19 

gave orders that all civilian suits in the camp were to be 
confiscated and the money would be returned. Needless 
to say, no one owned to having a suit, and a mild search 
failed to unearth any of them. 

We intended to escape on Monday, because Tuesday 
morning roll-call was at 11.30 a.m. instead of 9.30 a.m., 
and if we could get out unseen it would give us two hours 
more time before we were missed. On Friday I found 
out that two good fellows, Ding and Nichol, also intended 
to escape by the same method. We decided that all four 
of us would try. Naturally it was necessary to go on the 
same night, and Monday was selected. We tossed up who 
was to cut the wire and go first, and fortune decided for 
Ding and Nichol. 



20 



THE ESCAPING CLUB 




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% 






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a. 



CHAPTER III 

THE FIRST EVASION 

A BRIEF study of the plan of the camp and its 
defenses will make our plan of escape quite clear. 
The sentries are represented hy X, the arc lights 
by 0> an d the dogs in kennels by " 0." All round the 
camp was iron wire torpedo netting, with two-inch mesh, 
about 12 feet high on iron poles. The gardens offered a 
very suitable hiding-place close to the wire-netting. At 
"G" was the German guardhouse, and "K" was the 
kitchen, and Germans used to pass frequently between the 
guardhouse and the kitchen along a footpath close to 
the wire. At 6.45 an extra sentry was placed outside the 
wire at " S," and it was not sufficiently dark to make the 
attempt till 6.30, so that we had a quarter of an hour to 
cut the wire and to find an opportunity to cross the path 
and reach the darkness behind the glare of the arc lights. 
By far the greatest danger came, not from the sentries, 
but from stray Germans who used the footpath at frequent 
but irregular intervals. We agreed to give the other two 
five minutes' start so as not to interfere with their escape if 
we were caught getting out, and also to avoid being caught 
red-handed ourselves if they were seen and chased in the 
immediate vicinity of the camp. Longer we could not 

21 



22 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

allow them, and even five minutes' delay would give us very 
little time before the extra sentry was posted at " S." On 
Monday night all went excellently up to a point. The 
sentries marched with commendable regularity up and 
down their beats. At 6.30 the four of us were changed and 
ready. There were so many different uniforms in the 
camp, and so many officers habitually wore garments of a 
nondescript character, that in the dusk we were able to 
mingle with the other prisoners without drawing attention 
to ourselves. A minute later Ding entered the peas and 
began to cut the wire. He had scarcely started when a 
German walking on the footpath passed a few inches 
from his nose. Ding felt sure he had been seen and 
retreated hurriedly. We waited anxiously for a minute or 
two, prepared to rush to our rooms and change and hide 
our kit if there were any signs of alarm. Then Nichol 
went round to investigate, and taking the pincers entered 
once more into the garden and prepared to cut the wire. 
The German had certainly not seen Ding in the garden, 
but how he had escaped being seen coming out, considering 
the commotion he made, passes my comprehension. Kicq 
and I had a rapid consultation, and decided that it was too 
late to escape that night, so we sent a friend round to tell 
Kichol not to cut the wire, and we all retreated and 
changed, feeling rather crestfallen. At 6.45 Ding sud- 
denly remembered that he had left his greatcoat in the 
peas close up by the wire. This was most gallantly 
rescued by Nichol under the nose of the sentry. The 
attempt had been a failure, but not a disaster. 

Kicq and I decided to wait another week, for we wished 



THE FIEST EVASION 23 

t© make certain that the Germans were not keeping an eye 
on the place in order to catch us red-handed, and Monday 
was the most suitable day. Ding dropped out ; and ffichol, 
who did not speak German and consequently could not 
come with us, said he would not get another partner, 
firstly, because Kicq and I would have a better chance with- 
out a second party following us, and, secondly, because it 
was getting rather late in the year for walking. Mchol 
offered to cut the wire for us, and this offer we were only 
too pleased to .accept, for we knew he was absolutely re- 
liable, and it would save us from dirtying our clothes. 
During the week Kicq and I changed our plans and 
determined to go .straight by the through train which 
left Goslar at 2.13 a.m. to Diisseldorf, and then try to find 
a Dutch bargee on the Ehine, who could be bribed to take 
us as far as the frontier and could probably give us in- 
formation as to the best method of crossing if he could not 
take us through himself. This plan was obviously better 
than the long and complicated train journey to 
Switzerland. 

The only result of last Monday's failure was to convince 
us that, unless real bad luck or unforeseen circumstances 
intervened, we were certain to get clear away. We revised 
and perfected details and equipment, raised some more 
money for the purpose of giving a larger preliminary bribe 
to the bargee, got some tracings of maps for the night 
march to Goslar, and began to feel pretty confident. I 
don't think there is anything that I have ever done quite 
so exciting as escaping from prison. It may not be the 
same for other men who have tried both fighting in the 



24 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

air and escaping, but I know that for me the "nervous 
tension" before the latter is much greater than anything 
I have experienced at the front. Once in the middle, one 
has not time to be nervous in either case. It is the neces- 
sity of walking and talking and acting as if nothing were 
about to happen, right up to the moment of going, which 
is such a strain. 

I think there were only half a dozen people in the camp 
who knew that Kicq and I were going, though many knew 
that Ding and ISTichol had tried a week before. It was very 
necessary to keep the knowledge, not only from the 
Germans, but also from the foreign members of the camp, 
as one can never be quite certain that there is not a spy 
or some one in German pay among them. Eor obvious 
reasons it would be very much more difficult to introduce 
a spy amongst the English, but it is a good rule that the 
fewer who know the better. 

On Monday night at 6 o'clock Kicq and I had a good feed 
with ISTichol on sardines and jam, and then changed into 
our civilian clothes. At 6.30 ISTichol was timed to go in 
and cut the wire. We walked round the hotel, and I 
deposited the bag in a dark spot by " M." We then took 
a turn or two up and down. We had only to wait about 
five minutes, when Nichol appeared and said, "The wire 
is cut, but I am not sure if the hole is large enough to get 
through; take the cutters" (a pair of sharp nail pincers 
which had been stolen off the German electrician), "as 
you may have to enlarge it." The sentry at " C," a fat 
old Landsturmer, chose to stand still instead of going up 
and down his beat, but he only glanced very occasionally 



THE FIRST EVASION 25 

towards " M," and we thought the moment favorable. 
This time we made no mistake about it. Kicq and I 
walked round to " M," stood a moment on the path, and 
had a look round. " C " had his back turned — " B " 
was at the far end of his beat. I took the bag and put it 
among the peas. Then in went Kicq, and I after him — 
he was through the hole in no time. I passed the bag 
through to him and came through myself, and we were 
across the lighted-up strip and into the darkness behind 
the arc lights inside six seconds. We went at full speed 
for a hundred yards or so, then, as there was no alarm, 
we stopped and looked back. Everything was quite quiet 
and we could see the sentries walking up and down on 
their beats under the electric lights, so we shook hands on 
the success of the first phase. Meanwhile Nichol, having 
seen us off and done his best to close the hole, strolled 
back round the building and there met Kicq's friend and 
confidant, a Belgian captain, an excellent fellow but rather 
an excitable conspirator. "C'e&t bien l'heure," said the 
Captain, "ils doivent partir tout de suite ou il sera trop 
tard." " Ils sont deja partis," said Nichol. "With a cry 
of joy, the captin fell on his neck and kissed him. 



CHAPTER IV 

WHAT HAPPENED TO KICQ 

WE now felt pretty safe from immediate pursuit, 
and turning off to the right we made a semi- 
circle round the camp and crossed the causeway 
between the two lakes. There was a good chance that our 
absence would not be discovered for another sixteen hours, 
that is, till the 11.30 roll-call next morning. We had about 
16 to 20 kilometres to go to Goslar station, but as it was 
not yet 7 o'clock, and as our train left at 2.13 a.m., we had 
heaps of time. Besides this, Kicq knew the first 6 miles 
or so, having been that way on a walk. The walk to 
Goslar was almost without incident. We had two com- 
passes, which had been made in the camp by a Belgian, 
and we had a sketch map of the way, which was mostly 
through pine forests. We were really overcautious and 
made wide detours round houses and took great pains not 
to meet any one on the road. All this was most unnec- 
essary, as our civilian kit was quite good as I afterwards 
proved, and we both spoke German well enough to pass 
off as Germans for a few words. After walking fast for a 
couple of hours we found we were much ahead of time and 
so halted for half an hour at the foot of the Brechen, a huge 

tower built for sight-seeing purposes on the highest hill in 

26 



WHAT HAPPENED TO KICQ 27 

the neighborhood. Soon after half-past one we entered 
Goslar and walked boldly through the town, saying what 
we had to say to each other in German ; but we only saw 
one man, who took no notice of us. The station was 
easily found, and as there were twenty minutes before 
the train started we sat on a bench at the side of the 
road and waited till 2.05 a.m. before entering the station. 
Kicq wished to buy tickets for both of us, but I insisted 
on our having nothing to do with one another during the 
journey. We decided that Kicq was to go in first and 
buy a ticket for Diisseldorf if the train went as far, and 
if not, for Elberfeld. At 2.05 a.m. I followed him at about 
150 yards distance into the station, and found that the 
booking office was not yet open, and that some dozen 
people were waiting to take tickets. Our appearance ap- 
parently caused no suspicion, and we both of us examined 
the time-tables on the walls in the hope of finding out if the 
train went to Diisseldorf. I should very much like to have 
known how much the ticket would cost, but could get no 
information on either point. Kicq looked a proper Hun 
in knee-breeches, dark puttees, brown boots, a German 
cape, and no hat. The fashion of going bareheaded had 
scarcely come in then, though hat cards had been lately 
introduced. Kicq told me afterwards that my own mother 
would not have known me. I wore a pair of gold-rimmed 
glasses and walked with a bit of a stoop and a limp. My 
clothes were green, with a collar that buttoned right up 
to the neck. I wore an ordinary black cap, and carried 
a black mackintosh over my arm. We both of us had our 
hair cut short, and our moustaches had been training for 



28 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

some time and curled up a bit at the ends. At last the 
ticket office was opened and we got into the queue. I 
could not hear what ticket Kicq took, so I said, "Drifte 
nach Diisseldorf Sehnellzug" when my turn came. The 
clerk made some remark which I did not catch, so I added 
another 5 marks to the 20-marks note which I had put 
down. He had apparently asked if I had any small 
change, as he pushed back my 5-marks note and gave me a 
lot of change and my ticket. I pretended to count it and 
then stuffed it into my pocket and was jolly glad to get 
that business over. After I had taken my ticket I lost 
sight of Kicq, but the man who clipped my ticket at the 
barrier told me from what platform the train for Diissel- 
dorf went. I put my bag down and sat in a dark corner 
on one of the benches and lit a German cigar. Kicq was 
walking up and down, and I did so too, though we took 
no notice of each other. The train was rather late, and 
I dared not go near my bag as an officer and a girl were 
standing close to it. When the train came in and I 
picked up the bag the girl gave me a suspicious look, but 
she did not have time to say anything, as I grabbed the 
bag and scrambled into a third-class coach. I did not see 
Kicq again till we met once more in prison. 

Before I go any farther with my story, I will tell you 
how Kicq was caught. He told me about it in prison, but 
I cannot be certain that I have remembered all the details 
accurately. He got into a third-class coach and stood in 
the corridor. After he had been there a short time an 
officer came up and talked to him, and as the train rocked 
about a good deal they had to shout to make themselves 



WHAT HAPPENED TO KICQ 29 

heard. The officer did not seem to suspect anything wrong 
with the accent. Kicq talked German perfectly fluently, 
but in my opinion he has rather a curious accent. In 
answer to a question he told the officer that he had "been on 
a walking tour, during his holiday, in the Harz Mountains, 
and numerous other lies. When asked if he had served 
in the army he said he had been paralyzed in the arm from 
infancy, and then was forced to tell more lies of a com- 
plicated nature. Kicq swore the fellow did not suspect 
anything, but was merely a conscientious ass. Evidently 
the officer asked to be allowed to look at Kicq's passport. 
Kicq said he was sorry he had not got it on him ; he had 
never found it necessary to carry a passport, and he had 
never been asked for it before. The officer said that any 
letters he had on him would do, just to prove his identity. 
Kicq answered that for the last few days he had been 
walking and he had received no letters. The Bosche, 
apologizing, said he was sorry he would have to ask him 
to identify himself by telephone from the next station, but 
that he was officially bound to do so under the circum- 
stances. Kicq said that of course he would be delighted 
to do so, and went to the lavatory, where he got rid of 
everything by which it would be possible to identify him as 
a prisoner of war. At the next station he intended to 
bolt as soon as the train stopped, but for some reason he 
had no chance of doing so. At the next station he said he 
was a Swiss deserter, and refused to give his name for 
the sake of the honor of his family. During the next 
twenty hours he told the most amazing number of lies, 
and at the end was very nearly sent to a civilian camp to 



30 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

be interned there pending investigations. Of course that 
was just what he wanted, as he had managed to hide 
money on his person and was quite confident that he would 
have no difficulty in escaping from any civilian camp. 
Unfortunately he was identified by an Unter Offizier sent 
from Clausthal for the purpose. But if he had not suc- 
ceeded in his main object, he had at any rate concealed 
his identity for twenty-four hours, and thereby greatly 
increased my chances. 

To return to my story. After getting into the third- 
class coach I made my way along the corridor, looking for 
a seat. The train was rather crowded, and the first car- 
riage I tried to get into was half full of soldiers. I asked 
if there was a seat free, and was told, "Nur militarisch." 
By this time I had completely got over all feelings of 
nervousness, and was thoroughly enjoying the whole situ- 
ation. A little farther on a young fellow saw I was look- 
ing for a place, and coming out into the corridor said he 
was getting out next station and I could have his corner 
place. This suited me very well, as I got a seat next to 
a woman. So I sat in the corner, pulled the curtain 
over my face, and went to sleep. I did not wake up again 
till we got to Elberfeld about 6 a.m. At Elberfeld a num- 
ber of people got in, and the carriage was crowded with 
business men. A pretty lively discussion started, and I was 
afraid of being asked for my opinion, so I buried myself in 
the paper I had bought at Elberfeld and soon pretended to 
be asleep again. We got to Diisseldorf between 8 and 9, I 
think. I could see no signs of Kicq as I got out, and not 
caring to loiter about too much on the platform I went 



WHAT HAPPENED TO KICQ 31 

through the barrier and waited about in the main hall, 
through which he would have to pass to leave the station. 
After waiting for ten minutes I became anxious about him, 
and turned over all the probabilities in my mind. '(1) He 
might have been recaptured in the train. (2) He might 
have taken a ticket to Elberfeld, under the impression the 
train only went as far as that. In this case he would 
come on soon, and I searched the time-tables without much 
success to find out when the next train from Elberfeld to 
Diisseldorf came in. (3) He might be waiting for me in 
some other part of the station, but as it was obviously easier 
for him to come out through the barrier than for me to go 
in, I decided that I was waiting in the most suitable place 
and had better stay there for a bit. In the meantime, 
according to our scheme, I asked for a plan of the town 
from a bookstall. The old man who sold it to me had to 
get it from the main bookstall, and then chatted very 
pleasantly to me on the weather, the war, and the increase 
of paper money with every new war loan. I confined my 
remarks to "Ja wiinderschon," "Da haben Sie recht," "Ja 
whol es ghet nicht so schlimm," "Kolossal," etc., but 
nevertheless began to get enormous confidence in my 
German. I also bought a local time-table. After waiting 
for about half an hour I did not like the way an old fellow 
in uniform, a sort of station oflicial, was looking at me, 
so with the help of my plan I made my way to the river. 
I spent the next four hours in Diisseldorf, going to the 
station at intervals to see if Kicq had turned up. Our 
plan was to get hold of a Dutch bargee, so that I 
thought I had almost as good a chance of meeting him 



32 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

on the riverside as at the station, besides which the afore- 
said old man at the station had got a nasty suspicious look 
in his eya I bought some apples from an old lady in 
the market-place by the river, and then went to a quiet 
spot and ate some sandwiches and considered the situation. 
As far as I could see, there was nothing at all promising in 
the way of bargees on the river. I knew that an English 
officer had escaped from Crefeld, and that from Crefeld 
to the frontier was only about twenty or thirty miles. I 
soon saw from my time-table that I could get a tram to 
Crefeld across the Rhine, so I inspected the bridge over the 
Bhine, and as far as I could see no passes were asked for, 
from those going over in the tram. Before I did anything 
more, it seemed to me absolutely necessary to have some 
sort of map of the frontier, so I determined to try to buy 
one. I walked back once more along the riverside, and, 
as it was hot, tried to buy some milk in a milk shop. The 
woman said something about a milk card, so I said, "Ah, I 
forgot," and walked out. I went back once more to the 
station by tram (I was getting tired of lugging my bag 
about, and used the trams pretty freely). On the way 
there I went into a bookshop and bought a map of ISTord 
Deutschland and then asked for a Baedeker. The woman 
said she did not think she was allowed to sell that, and 
called her husband, who turned out to be a German N.C.O. 
He said that, owing to the number of suspicious persons, 
spies, prisoners of war, etc., he had to be very careful to 
whom he sold maps. I said, "Natiirlich, das verstehe ich 
wohl" (Naturally, I can well understand that). Just 
then I caught sight of a map marked "Umgebungen von 



WHAT HAPPENED TO KICQ 33 

Krefeld" (The Neighborhood of Crefeld), and asked to 
look at it. It was just what I wanted, an excellent map 
of Crefeld to the frontier, .about 1:100,000. I bought 
this and cleared out, without, I think, arousing any 
suspicion. My confidence in my German was now 
"kolossal"! There was, of course, no sign of Kicq at 
the station, so I took the tram for the park in order to 
have lunch and a quiet look at my mapw After I had been 
there a short time and had made up my mind as to my 
plan of campaign, I noticed an old gentleman observing 
me in a suspicious manner. He was obviously stalking 
me and trying to get a better look at me and my map*. I 
waited till he had gone round a bush and then packed up 
rapidly, walked round another bush, and going through 
a sort of shrubbery got out of the park and boarded the 
first tram I saw. After traveling I know not where on 
this, I got out, and making my way to the river, strolled 
once more along the docks, keeping a lookout for Kicq, 
and then walked up the main street (always carrying my 
bag) to Prince Afold Platz, from where my tram to 
Crefeld started. A pointsman showed me the place from 
which the trams left every half-hour, so after one more visit 
to the station I caught the one o'clock tram. The girl 
conductress on the tram said I was on the wrong tram when 
I asked for my ticket. She gave me the ticket, however, 
and told me to get out at the first station over the Rhine 
and get into the next tram. At the first station over the 
Rhine I got out, and seeing a Bierhalle asked for a glass 
of beer. I had just given the woman a mark when my 
tram came in, so without waiting for the change I grabbed 



34 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

my bag and made off. She ran after me, but I pointed 
to the tram and called, "It does not matter, I have no time," 
and boarded the tram. 



CHAPTER y, 



THE FKONTIEB 



WHEJST we got to Crefeld I saw that the station 
was on the east side of the town, but after my 
experience at Diisseldorf I thought it would be 
much safer to walk boldly right through the middle of 
the town than to skirt round the edges. My brother was 
at this time interned at Crefeld, and I thought how amus- 
ing it would be if I were to meet him in the town and 
wondered if he would keep a straight face when I winked 
at him. The walk through the town was without incident. 
One fellow, in Landsturm uniform, a prison guard I 
should think, turned round and looked at me in a nasty 
way, perhaps recognizing my likeness to my brother, but 
I walked quickly on and nothing came of it. It must have 
been just after 2 p.m. when I got through into the open 
country on the southwest side of Crefeld, and a more 
horrible country I have never seen ; it was absolutely flat, 
no trees and no signs of cover of any sort. There were 
one or two disused factories, which I inspected, but did 
not like the look of them as hiding-places. I passed several 
parties of French soldiers working in the fields, but did 
not dare to speak to them. The day was very hot and 

my bag was very heavy, and I could not help feeling I 

35 



36 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

was rather a suspicious figure wandering about through 
the fields with a heavy traveling-bag within 20 miles of 
the frontier. It was a most unpleasant walk, and at times 
I thought of just throwing myself down in the middle of 
a field of roots, but the country was so fiat that I could 
never be quite sure that someone would not see me crawling 
into them. It was not till 3.30 that I found a small 
alder copse with thick undergrowth, which I thought 
would do. There were a number of people working in 
the fields quite close to it, but I walked by them and 
round the copse, and putting the copse between them and 
me I doubled back into it. It was quite a small copse, 
about 50 by 20 yards, with thick rank grass in between 
the clumps. The people outside were only about 50 yards 
from me, and I could hear them talking and laughing. 
Still I was very comfortable and there were no tracks, 
and when I had made up some yarn to tell them if I was 
discovered, I went to sleep. Later on I opened a tin of 
Oxford sausages and had a good meal. Once a dog came 
through hunting rabbits, and once a man and a girl came 
quite close, but neither disturbed me. I began to find 
things very tedious and looked forward to the night's walk. 
Soon after 10 p.m. I started out from my hiding-place 
and walked hard with very few rests till 5.30 next morning, 
when I found a good place to lie up in. Considering the 
amount of energy expended, I made very little progress. 
Many detours were necessary to avoid the villages and 
houses, and for the most part I walked across country by 
small paths which were very clearly shown on my excellent 
map. However, my bag and the going were both heavy, 



THE FEONTIER 3Y 

and three-quarters of an hour's halt between 1 and 2 a,m. 
and some hot cocoa were most refreshing. At one place 
where there was a level crossing a man came to open the 
barrier, so I took the initiative and said, "Kach Anrath 
grade aus?" (Straight on to Anrath?) He said, "Ja 
wohl," and opened the gate. (After that I always kept the 
name of the next village of which I was sure of the pro- 
nunciation in my head, so as to be able to ask my way 
there. 

At about 5 o'clock I was pretty tired and found myself 
with the large village of Siichteln in front of me, through 
which I had to pass, as it is on a river. I funked it, as 
the bridge over the river was such an obvious place to have 
a sentry. After thinking it out, I decided it would be less 
suspicious to go through just after daylight when there 
were a few people about, so I lay up and went to sleep in a 
bush in the middle of a water meadow. "When I woke up, 
shivering with the cold, it was about 5.30 and still dark, 
so I crossed the road and found a splendid warm spot in 
the middle of a haycock, which completely covered me up. 
Still, I thought, they might cart the hay that day; so 
at 6.15 a.m., when it was just getting light, I walked 
boldly through the village. There were one or two people 
about, but they took no interest in me. At 6.30 I had 
found an excellent hiding-place on the far side of the town. 
It was rather hot all day, and I had no water-bottle and 
suffered from thirst a good deal, but otherwise it was very 
pleasant, being up in the thick bushes on the top of an old 
gravel pit. The time seemed very long, and in the after- 
noon I very foolishly wandered about a bit in the woods. 



38 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

I was seen by one man, but I don't think be was suspicious, 
and so making a sbort detour I got back to my hiding- 
place. Tbat is tbe worst of being alone; it is almost 
impossible not to do foolisb tbings. 

I started off again about 9.30 p.m., boping to cross tbe 
frontier tbat nigbt. I was about 10 miles from tbe frontier, 
but reckoned tbat it would be necessary to walk nearly 
15 miles if I wanted to avoid all tbe villages, as tbe 
country was very tbickly populated. Tbere is notbing 
mucb to say about tbis nigbt's walk — it was mucb like tbe 
otber, tbougb I suffered ratber more from tbirst. At all 
tbe places wbere tbere was water tbere were also bouses, 
and I did not dare to stop. I managed to quencb my 
tbirst to a certain extent by chewing roots from tbe fields. 
Unfortunately, after crossing tbe canal, I took a wrong 
road and went many miles soutbwest instead of west, and 
found myself in a long straggling village. Fortunately for 
my nerves tbere were very few dogs (very different, as I 
found afterwards, from Bavaria), and after walking 
tbrougb about two miles of village I extricated myself 
and got into tbe big wood on tbe frontier at about 4.30 a.m. 
It was a very wild spot, and ratber like some tbickly 
wooded parts of Scotland. It was also very billy, witb 
ridges of thick heather or long grass between almost im- 
penetrable fir woods. I bad an extremely pleasant sleep in 
tbe beatber, and at 6.30 a.m. decided tbat I would move on 
cautiously. It was an ideal place for stalking, and I 
tbougbt I would try and locate tbe frontier in tbe day time 
and if possible find out wbat obstacles I bad before me. 
From my map it appeared tbat I bad about 3 kilometres 



THE FKONTIER 39 

of forest between me and the frontier, but of course I 
did not know whether the guards would be placed exactly 
on the frontier. It seemed to me at the time absolutely 
essential, and even now I think I was quite right, to try to 
find out by day exactly where the sentries' line was. For 
all I knew there might be electrified wires, and on a dark 
night in the forest one was more likely than not to walk 
straight into them without ever seeing them at all. The 
rides would almost certainly be guarded, and the woods 
were so thick that it was impossible to crawl through them 
without making an awful noise. I know now that a forest 
is not only the most obvious place to try and cross the 
frontier, and for that reason the best guarded, but under 
any conditions, and for many reasons, the open country is 
the best place to try. However, I felt pretty confident 
that I should see the sentries before they saw me, so I 
went forward cautiously, examining every ride before I 
went down it. I went slowly through the woods for about 
three hours, in a west or northwest direction, steering by 
compass, and then began to think I must be getting pretty 
near the frontier. I was confirmed in this idea by finding 
a well used path down one of the rides, so I crawled into 
the wood at the side and lay down to think it out and 
have lunch. While I was sitting there a soldier wheeling a 
bicycle came down the path. When he had gone I crawled 
out to the edge of the ride and had a good look around. 
Almost north of me I could make out the roof of a house 
through the trees with a flagstaff and flag beside it. Like 
a fool, I never grasped that that was the frontier block- 
house — and then I suddenly saw a figure half a mile away, 



40 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

with something on his shoulder, cross the end of the ride — 
a soldier with a rifle, I thought, but could not be sure. 

After resting till about 10.30 I retraced my steps to 
look for a bit of map which had fallen out of my pocket, 
but was unable to find it. However, it did not matter, 
as the map was no longer of much use to me. Once on 
the move I felt very restless and not a bit tired, and as 
the cover was so good I determined to try and find out 
a bit more about the frontier. I found a ride leading in 
the right direction and followed that along very cautiously, 
mostly on my hands and knees, crawling through thick 
heather. I crossed two more rises without seeing anyone, 
and still crawled on. It was really madness to go any 
farther now, but it all seemed so safe and the woods were 
so thick that the necessity seemed to me greater than the 
danger. It only shows the great advantage of having a 
friend with you when you escape — if Kicq had been there 
I am sure we should both of us have got across; alone, it 
is almost impossible to refrain from taking undue risks. 
It is partly overconfidence and partly boredom with doing 
nothing, and partly a sort of reckless and restless feeling 
which comes over every one, I think, at times. Buckley 
and I, when we got away some six months later, nearly 
always adopted the more cautious of two plans. The 
occasions on which the more cautious advice was abandoned 
in favor of the more reckless, though few, three times 
nearly led to disaster. On this first expedition of mine 
I had no rules and regulations for escaping prisoners, such 
as one learned at Fort 9, and no experience of escaping. 
I had to carry on by the light of nature. However, instead 



THE FRONTIER 41 

of making further excuses for what I did, I tad better 
go on with the story. 

After crossing a ride, I climbed a steep hank and came 
out on to a sort of plateau, about 100 yards across. The 
undergrowth was thick but there were only a few trees 
about, though there was a wood on the far side again. 
I was crawling through this undergrowth when I sud- 
denly stopped short and held my breath. There, 15 yards 
from me, was a low wooden hut and I caught sight of a 
German soldier through the open door. I stymied mytelf 
from the hut by a bush and looked over my shoulder for 
the best line of retreat. Just as I was about to crawl off, 
a German sentry walked by me from the right, walking 
towards the hut. He was only about 10 yards off and 
was unarmed, and was buckling up his belt as he passed. 
I was not very well under cover from that direction, as 
my legs were sticking out of the bush, but I thought he 
would not see me if I lay quite still. When he was 5 yards 
from me, he stopped to adjust his belt and turned towards 
me, and as he looked up he saw my legs. He was a big 
heavy built fellow, and as he walked quickly up to me 
he said, "Who are you ? What are you doing here ?" I 
crawled out of the bush and stood up. "I am a papermaker 
from Darmstadt out on a holiday," I said. 

"Have you got any papers?" 

"Yes," I lied. 

"Well, you must come and show them." 

I took no notice of this hint, but said, "Could you kindly 
tell me if this is the Dutch frontier just here ?" 



42 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

"That lias nothing to do with you," he answered ; "yon 
just come along with me." 

I took no notice, and repeated the question. "Mit mir 
kommen — so fort," he roared out, and gripped me by the 
shoulder. He took me across the plateau and towards the 
wood on the opposite side, and as we were stepping out of 
a sort of pit I suddenly bolted from him. I dashed into 
the wood and he was after me yelling "Posten" at the top 
of his voice. We were running steeply down hill through 
the woods, consequently it was difficult for me to double 
back into the thick woods behind without being cut off. I 
turned as much right handed as I could, but he was only 
about 10 or 15 yards behind me, and I had not much time 
to think. About 50 yards ahead at the bottom of the slope 
there was a road which I could not avoid crossing as I 
saw it curling around to my right. As I was crashing 
through the last few yards of wood before the road, the 
fellow behind still yelling "Halt !" like a madman, I sud- 
denly saw a sentry on the road who put up his rifle at 
10 yards' range and called "Halt," and I halted as abruptly 
as possible. The fellow behind came up cursing and pant- 
ing, and I was marched along the road to the left. On 
the road I saw there was another sentry leading a dog 
about 100 yards north of us. As we went along I saw the 
sentry who had held me up slip a clip of cartridges into 
his magazine, so that I am not sure that his rifle had been 
loaded after all. We passed another sentry (they seemed 
to be stationed about every 150 yards or so), and then 
came to the wooden hut which I had seen earlier in the day. 
There were about ten men in the hut (it was the guard- 



THE FRONTIER 43 

room for the frontier posts on that sector), and they treated 
me quite well. I asked for some tea and tobacco, and sat 
down in a corner near the window to consider the position. 
Rather foolishly I told them who I was. A "Flieger 
Hauptmann" was a hit of a capture, and they were very 
pleased about it. They searched me very mildly, and took 
away my map and compass but nothing else. From where 
I was sitting I eould see out of a window. There I was — 
20 yards from the Dutch border. I had only to get across 
the road and I should be in thick undergrowth on the far 
eide. It seemed to me most unlikely that there were any 
further obstacles than this one line of sentries. I believed 
at the time that I was actually on the very border, but 
I am not quite so sure of that now — anyhow, I am nearly 
sure I should have got clear away if I could have got out 
of that hut with a few yards' start. I could see the sentry 
outside the door, and he had his rifle slung over one 
shoulder by the strap. As I was afraid that he would 
get rather too good a shot at me if I ran straight, I 
determined that if I could get out of the hut I would 
double round it and get back into the thick woods behind 
and get across the following night. There seemed to be no 
obstacle of any sort in the way of wire. While I was 
sitting there several girls came into the hut who presented 
papers, which were checked by the 1ST. CO., and laughed 
and joked with the soldiers in a lingo which I could not 
follow. I found also that I could not understand the 
German soldiers when they talked among themselves. 

I must have sat there for an hour or more — pretending 
to doze most of the time, but keeping a pretty sharp look- 



44 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

out for a chance of getting out of the door. Several people 
had come in, and I noticed exactly how the latch worked. 
There was an oldish fellow who annoyed me a good deal 
by standing with his back to the door the whole time. I 
thought it was accident at first, but I soon saw that he 
had his suspicions of me and would not be enticed from 
the door for anything. The only thing to be done was to 
pretend to fall fast asleep. This had the desired effect, 
and when half an hour later he left the door to glance at 
a paper which a soldier had brought in, I made a dash 
for it. There was a fellow sitting by the side of the door 
who must have seen me turn and, so to speak, gather myself 
together to make the dash ; for, as I went out, he made a 
desperate grab at me and by ill-fortune caught the belt 
at the back of my coat. It tore in his hand as I struggled, 
but it stopped me just long enough to give the sentry out- 
side the time to fall on my neck, and then they all fell on 
me and every one tried to hit me at once. Eor some 
minutes there was a horrid scene. Ten furious men hit, 
kicked, punched, and cursed me all at once. I did my 
best to ward off the blows with my hands, and luckily 
there were so many of them that they all got in each 
other's way and I was scarcely hurt at all till one on them 
cut my head open with a bayonet. After a bit they calmed 
down and I was led back into the hut, with much kicking 
and cursing. Eor a long time they continued to curse me, 
and I think I must have gone temporarily mad, for I 
started to argue with them and made matters worse. About 
an hour later, preparations were made to remove me to 
Briiggen. They undid my braces — they undid all the 



THE FRONTIEK 45 

buttons of my trousers, which I had to hold up with one 
hand whilst I carried all my belongings in the other. The 
walking was very rough, mostly through thick heather, 
and I was escorted by five men and an 1ST. CO. The five 
men carried their rifles in a most explosive state of readi- 
ness and the IsT.C.O. kept a revolver handy. Once, when 
I fell, I was very near being shot on the spot. Of course 
there were thick woods on either hand most of the way, and 
once in them they would never have caught me again. 
However, they never gave me a chance. I was feeling 
extremely fit and well, and managed the hot walk over 
heavy ground much more easily than most of my guards, 
who were fat old chaps. 

Although I was bitterly disappointed, I did not feel it 
so much at the time as afterwards, and really enjoyed 
the whole experience more than now seems to me possible. 
I was an object of curiosity in the village of Briiggen, and 
was eventually brought into an office, on the second story 
of a house, where several soldier clerks were working and 
given a chair in a corner, where I went to sleep. I was 
awakened by the entrance of a fat, unhealthy looking Ger- 
man lieutenant, to whom I took the most intense dislike 
at sight. He brought me into the next room, place a loaded 
revolver on the table beside him, and ordered me to strip 
nude. I suppose I must have laughed at him, as he got 
very angry and told me it was no laughing matter. After 
my clothes had been searched he allowed me to dress, and 
then with intense deliberation began to write an account 
of me. I told him my camp, name, rank, etc., but when 
one of the guards (the brute who had first caught me) 



46 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

said that I had hit about me with my fists, I protested and 
said that, on the contrary, I had been brutally man-handled 
and my head had been cut open. My coat collar and head 
were all covered with blood, but the cut, though deep, 
was clean and gave little pain. He called a medical 
orderly, who dressed my head quite efficiently. 

After waiting for an hour or two more in the clerks' 
office, I was solemnly warned by a nasty little N.C.O. that 
I would be shot immediately if I made a further attempt 
to escape, and was marched off with a couple of guards. 
One happened to be the fellow who had originally caught 
me and the other was the old fellow who had made such a 
point of guarding the door in the hut. They were both, 
rather naturally, very suspicious of me and never gave 
me half a chance. After a march of three miles or so, we 
cam© to a big factory which was used as barracks, and 
I was put into the guardroom. When feeding time came 
round, I was given a very good plate of excellent vegetable 
soup, of which they gave me a second helping when I 
asked for it, and as much hot water, colored to look like 
coffee, as I could drink. On the whole, considering they 
were a rough lot of soldiers, I was treated very decently in- 
deed. One young fellow, in fact, went out of his way to be 
nice to me and to make me comfortable. He passed me a 
packet of tobacco when no one was looking, and later in 
the evening there was quite an amusing discussion on the 
war, aeroplanes, etc. I think it rather astonished them 
that an English officer, a "Hauptmann," was prepared to 
talk and be more or less friendly with them. I think they 
also rather appreciated the fact that I seemed to bear no 



THE FEONTIEE 47 

grudge against them for hitting me over the head with a 
bayonet; one of them in fact almost apologized for it by 
saying that they had been so enraged because they would 
have been heavily punished if I had escaped. They gave 
me some blankets, and I had an excellent night on a bench. 
One or two of them were thoughtful enough to warn me 
not to attempt to escape the next morning. Precautions 
had been taken, they said, and I would not have a chance. 



CHAPTER VI 

PAYING THE PIPEB 

NEXT morning I was marched off with my two old 
guards, and during the march, by orders from the 
Company H.Q., a third was added. We went by 
train to Gladsbach, and I was locked up in a strong room 
in the citadel. There was a spy-hole in the door, and a 
number of people came and had a look at me through it. 
Several plates of vegetable soup and a large hunk of very 
satisfying brown army bread were given to me later. An 
exhaustive search of the cell disclosed a book hidden in 
the straw mattress (which was verminous, by the way) 
on deeds of valor in the German army, so I passed a 
peaceful and not unpleasant day. 

Next day I was given a ration of bread and cheese, and 
a pleasantly fat German, an Offizier Stellvertreter, with a 
humorous face, informed me that he had to conduct me to 
Clausthal, and then (in an aside) that he did not like the 
job a bit. There was a sentry with, us, a tall, good looking 
man of fifty or so, who slung his rifle over his shoulder 
instead of carrying it at the "ready," as all my sentries 
had done for the last twenty-four hours. We got into a 
third-class reserved carriage at the station. The oificer 
asked me some questions about my escape, and said that 

48 



PAYING THE PIPEE 49 

lie had been told I was a desperate character. "Are you 
going to try to escape again from me V he said. I laughed, 
and said it depended on what sort of opportunity he gave 
me. "It will be a most uncomfortable journey," he said 
with a resigned sigh. Then he brightened up and said, 
"Why not give me your parole not to escape till Clausthal ; 
it will be so much more comfortable ?" "All right," I said, 
and we shook hands on it. The soldier i mme diately put 
his rifle, and the officer his revolver, on the rack. Then 
the latter got down a hand-bag, which was packed with 
food and a couple of bottles of wine, and we had a fine 
feed. We continued to have good feeds about every two 
hours all the way to Clausthal. During the lunch, I 
explained to him that if I had wanted to escape from him, 
he had given me several opportunities before I gave my 
parole. "Ah, what!" he said, "when you went to the 
lavatory?" "Yes," said I, "that was one of them; there 
was a door on the far side opening into the far carriage." 
"Ah, but that was guarded," he said, obviously rather 
startled. I knew that it had not been guarded, but it had 
not been worth my while attempting to escape, for many 
reasons. My clothes were badly torn and covered with 
blood, and it was broad daylight, so that I don't think 
I should have had any chance at all. My head was all 
bandaged up, and, if I had taken off the bandage to put 
my cap on, the wound would have started to bleed again. 
Also, I was beginning to feel the effects of my exertions, 
and had no map or compass, and very little idea of where 
I was. Consequently I was very glad to give my parole, 
and never regretted it. All my money had been taken 



50 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

from me, but in the most generous way he insisted that 
I was his guest and bought literature, beer, and food 
for all three of us on all possible occasions. 

He said he could not understand how I managed to 
pass myself off as a German, as he would have known me 
by my accent for a foreigner immediately. Soon after- 
wards a pretty shop-girl got in (up to that time we had 
kept people out by saying it was a reserved carriage), and 
to my guard's surprise she had no suspicion of my accent. 
Eventually he told her that I was an Englishman, which 
she refused to believe till I owned that it was true, and 
then she edged away into the far corner and got out at 
the next station. 

We got into Clausthal late at night and had a very dark 
walk up to the camp. My old fat officer and I parted the 
best of friends. He was a vulgar fellow but a good sports- 
man, and I am very grateful to him for his kindness. The 
fact of the matter is that he had been nearly two years at 
the front, and it was most noticeable that any German who 
had been at the front for any length of time became quite 
a decent fellow. It is the swine who has never been near 
the front who is intolerable. Very much the same con- 
trast is noticeable in peace time between those Germans 
who have lived abroad (especially in England) and those 
who have always stayed at home. I suppose that an 
Englishman who has never traveled is a pretty intolerable 
sort of person to a foreigner! 

The little lieutenant met me and showed me into a 
room in the German guardhouse, and told me to change 
into my uniform, and then to take any clothes I should 



PAYING THE PIPEE 51 

want for the night. I was put into a very nasty, bare, 
whitewashed brick room, next the pigsties. A Russian 
orderly brought me my food, and through him I had no 
difficulty in secretly exchanging notes with ISTichol and 
others in the camp. I was allowed to have any food 
they sent me, so, being very hungry, I naturally overate 
myself. Exercise consisted of half an hour's walk morning 
and afternoon, and I found that quite insufficient. My 
cell was next the pigs on one side and next the motor 
for making electricity on the other, and was consequently 
both smelly and noisy, besides being dirty. I asked to 
be allowed to have a bath, but it was not granted me for 
some days — four, I think. There were no windows to 
the place, but there were two doors and one doorway; 
that is to say, when they shut me in, they first locked an 
iron cage in front of the doorway, and outside that a 
wooden door. The wooden door, however, did not quite 
come to the top of the doorway; there was a gap of about 
nine inches, and through this gap light and air were sup- 
posed to enter. There was a bed, a basin, and a horrible 
stove, which either got red hot or went out. Books and 
tobacco were sent in to me ; but, even so, I spent a fairly 
uncomfortable fourteen days. 

After I had been in there for a week, Kicq was brought 
in and we shared the room, which was only about 10 feet 
by 6 feet. We had to put one bed on top of the other to 
fit the beds in at all. I was beginning to feel the dis- 
appointment of failure very bitterly, and should really 
have preferred to have been left alone to brood over it in 
peace. Kicq, however, did his best to make an exchange 



52 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

of Spanish and English lessons a regular occupation, and 
we eventually spent a good deal of our time like that. It 
was a disgusting sort of existence, and for several days 
it was extremely dirty and uncomfortable. Eventually, 
after repeated complaints, some improvements were made. 
We were not allowed to have a bath in the main building, 
as we would have been liable to come in contact with the 
other prisoners ; so ISTichol sent us in a tin hip-bath. We 
also got leave from the lieutenant to have our outside door 
open for half an hour in the morning and half an hour 
in the afternoon. As the sentries changed every two hours, 
it was a simple matter to tell each sentry that we had not 
yet had it open for half an hour that morning, so by this 
ruse de guerre we got a certain amount of light and air 
into the place. 

One morning about 9.30, whilst we were in the middle of 
washing and shaving and having breakfast all at once, a 
General, an A.D.C., the Camp Commandant, and the lieu- 
tenant all suddenly appeared outside our "grill" and were 
admitted by the sentry. I was in pyjamas and a tunic, 
and Kicq even more undressed, with his face covered with 
shaving soap, but we gave the General as military a "stand 
to attention" as we could under the circumstances. He 
answered our salute very politely, taking no notice of our 
undress uniform, and turning to the Commandant, said, 

"Sie waren in dem Tunnel gef angen ?" "JSJein, nein," 
said the lieutenant, saluting violently, and Kicq and I 
grinned, whilst the lieutenant and the Commandant showed 
obvious signs of anger ! For a long time we had believed 
that the Germans knew of our tunnel and were trying to 



PAYING THE PIPER 53 

catch us red-handed in it, and this of course confirmed our 
euspicions. The General was told that we both spoke 
German, and asked us if we had any complaints. We 
objected to the place in which we were imprisoned, but 
otherwise had not much of which to complain. I then 
said that we should like to receive our punishment, since 
at present we were just under arrest "pending investiga- 
tion." The General turned to his A.D.C., who, saluting 
between each sentence, said that the General had signed 
our punishment the day before and that we were sentenced 
to fourteen days' Stubenarrest, and that our punishment 
started from the day he had signed it. We thanked him, 
and said that was just the thing we were particularly 
anxious to know, and felt delighted that we had got o5 
so lightly. 

Two days later we went over into the old room in which 
Long, Nichol, and I had originally lived in No. 3 Barracks. 
The windows of the room were whitewashed, and there 
was a sentry in front of our door, the idea being, of course, 
to prevent us communicating with the other prisoners. 
This was quite absurd and nothing but red tape, as we 
were allowed to have the top part of the window open 
and we were separated only by thin wooden walls from the 
rooms on either side of us. It was only necessary to bang 
on the wall and shout anything you might wish to say. If 
we wanted anything, such as books, some one just threw 
them through the window to us. One day when the lieu- 
tenant was in the room, a book came hurtling through the 
window and hit him full in the chest. The German kept 
his temper very well and merely remonstrated with us, 



54 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

saying that it was unnecessary to break the rules when we 
could have anything we wanted by asking him. He was 
quite right, and I put it down to his credit that he kept 
his temper, but the amusement of disobeying rules slightly 
relieved our very monotonous existence. I have already 
explained that the whole camp was divided into two by 
torpedo netting. For the rest of our imprisonment at 
Clausthal, we used to take our exercise in this lower or 
southern section, all the other prisoners being cleared out 
of it for half an hour in the morning and half an hour 
in the afternoon for that purpose. The weather was beauti- 
fully fine, and, as the tennis-court was in this section, 
we decided we had better play tennis during our half an 
hour's exercise. We just banged on the wall and the 
people next door to leave two racquets and some balls out- 
side our door. This was a great success. Kicq was not 
much of a player, but he improved fast. 

The sentries were on the whole quite friendly. They 
were ostentatiously officious when another sentry was near, 
and did not care that an officer of any nationality other than 
English should see them talking to us. Most of them were 
physically unfit or bady wounded, and, though all seemed 
to be sick of the war, they did their duty in as inoffensive 
a way as possible. The old chap whom I had bribed was 
several times our sentry, and when he was on at night he 
would allow us to go into the room next door and see 
Kichol and Long. We in return gave him some good things 
to eat and hot chocolate and coffee when the nights were 
cold. When I was alone in the pigsty we had had a long 
talk in which he said that the N.C.O. of the guard had 



PAYING THE PIPER 55 

told him that I was actually over the frontier when I was 
caught. I am sure that this was not the case, however. 

A few days before we expected to be released, the lieu- 
tenant came in and told us that the General had made a 
mistake and that our Stubenarrest, as opposed to our 
UntersuchungscJiaft, did not start when the General signed 
our Bestrafung, but when the warrant was received by the 
Camp Commandant. Consequently, we should not get out 
till November 12th. I was extremely angry, as I was weary 
of the confinement, but Kicq took it very philosophically. 



OHAPTEE STII 

REMOVAL TO A STRAFE CAMP 

ABOUT this time I wrote home for the first time in 
code. The last time I had heen home on leave 
from France before being taken, I had made up, 
with the help of the rest of my family, a very rough sort of 
code depending on the formation of the letters. I wrote a 
longish message, very small, on a piece of cigarette paper, 
and stuck it to the flap of the envelope, and then wrote a 
code message in the letter saying, "Tear open flap of en- 
velope." The letter got through all right, but they failed 
at home to see that it was in code. The other letter* I 
wrote in code, and I wrote many from Fort 9 (and much 
more important ones), all got through successfully. 

At midday on November 12th we came out of prison. 
We had already been told that we were going to be sent to 
Ingolstadt ; but, though Nichol made inquiries in the camp, 
no one seemed to know what sort of place it was. We had 
to leave Clausthal camp about 2 o'clock and walk to the 
station, so that we had about half an hour in the camp 
to say "good-bye" and pass on all we had learnt. Both 
Kicq and I did a good deal of talking during the last hour 
we spent at Clausthal, and when the sentry came to fetch 
us we were given a very cheery send-off, nearly all the 

56 



REMOVAL TO A STRAFE CAMP 57 

camp turning out. We had a two or three mile walk to 
the station, and were escorted only by an 1ST. CO. with a 
revolver. In fact, during the whole of this journey we 
were, quite contrary to our expectations, so badly guarded 
that I swore I would be properly prepared to escape the 
next time I had a train journey at night. The little lieu- 
tenant met us at the station, and proved to be the most 
incompetent traveler. Although he asked every one he 
saw, he never seemed to know how or where to catch any 
train. In fact, Kicq, who had studied the matter when 
we had had intentions of trying for Switzerland, knew 
much more about the route than he did. We had a pretty 
uncomfortable and very dull journey. 

At Halle, after we had waited an hour or two in a Red 
Cross dormitory, the lieutenant made some bad muddle 
about the trains, and there was also a difficulty because 
prisoners-of-war were not allowed to travel on a "Sehnell- 
zug" (fast train). However, eventually we got into a third- 
class coach, and after pushing along the corridor, to the 
surprise of a crowd of peaceful travelers, we got into a 
third-class wooden-seated compartment. The lieutenant 
was perfectly hopeless and helpless, and I several times felt 
inclined to take command of the party and give the con- 
ductor a few marks to get us a decent carriage. I had a 
longish talk that night with him, but he would insist on 
smoking strong cigars with the window tight shut, and his 
breath stank so that I was nearly sick. He gave me rather 
an interesting picture of the Russian front during the big 
German advance. He said the dirt and discomfort were 
absolutely horrible. The usual Polish village consisted of 



Ss Ml Escaping clot 

huge "barn-like buildings where several families lived to- 
gether with a swarm of children and some half-dozen adults 
of both sexes. They usually slept, as far as I can make 
out, on top of the stoves, which were of the big tiled variety. 
A large number of animals and chickens lived in the same 
house, or rather room. For billeting purposes as many 
men as possible were crammed in these places — half a 
company or more. The whole place was indescribably 
filthy, and he assured me that every soldier, from a Tommy 
to a general, was simply covered with lice, and never got 
rid of them during the whole campaign. He was wounded 
very seriously early on in the advance. He got a bullet 
through his "Herzbeutel" (the bag which contains the 
heart), he said. The lot of the wounded was a terrible 
one, as they had to be transported on carts, over the worst 
possible roads, for very big distances to the rail-heads. 
Altogether he looked back on the Russian campaign with 
horror. 

We got to Nuremberg about 2 or 3 a.m. and were put 
in a room above the police station or guardhouse in the 
station. "We were allowed to buy some coffee and bread, 
and later got a wash and shave. We got to Ingolstadt 
some time about midday without further incident, and 
walked up to the central office of the prisoners-of-war camp. 
Here the lieutenant said good-bye, and I can't pretend I 
was sorry to see the last of him. He was quite a good, 
honest fellow, but one of those hopelessly conscientious 
people, with no initiative and no sense of humor. 

After waiting in the bureau for some time we were told 
we were bound for Fort 9, but could elicit no information 



REMOVAL TO A STKAFE CAMP 59 

as to what sort of place it was. We were told that we 
should have to sleep the night at the men's camp, as the 
fort was about 7 kilometres out of the town, and it was 
either too late or inconvenient to send us out that night. 

Ingolstadt is a town of some 30,000 or 40,000 inhabi- 
tants and is built on both banks of the Danube. The 
prisoners-of-war camp consists of half a dozen or more old 
forts, some of which lie on the north and some on the 
south bank. Fort 9 has the date 1870 above the gateway 
and as the others are on an almost identical plan, I expect 
they are much the same date. Besides these forts, which 
form a ring around Ingolstadt with a radius of about 7 
kilometres, there is a camp for men on the outskirts of the 
town itself. As far as I know, all the forts except one, 
which is a strafe camp for KC.O.'s who have attempted 
to escape, are used for officer prisoners-of-war. Fort 9, 
as we soon learnt, is the fort where the black sheep go. 
On our way to the men's camp we passed several working 
parties, mostly of French soldiers. As far as I could see, 
they showed no signs of ill-treatment, though I thought 
some of the Russians looked rather hungry and ill-kept. 
All we could see of the men's camp was a palisade with 
several strands of barbed wire on top. An extremely dirty, 
unsoldierly Bavarian sentry was sloping about outside, 
apparently having a beat of 200 or 300 yards long. He 
was merely typical of all Bavarian sentries. They are all, 
with rare exceptions, filthy and slovenly, and an incredibly 
large proportion have most unpleasant faces. Before I 
went to Bavaria as a prisoner, I had always looked on the 
South German as a kindly man — "gemiitlich" is the word 



60 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

they like to use about themselves — but it did not take long 
to completely change these ideas. I bad no longer any 
difficulty in believing that the Bavarians are justly accused 
of a very large share in the Belgian atrocities. 

While I am on the subject I might mention here Kicq's 
story of how the sack of Louvain was started. The account 
is supported by what Major Whitton says in his book 
The Marne Campaign, and makes some excuses for the 
Germans, though it by no means frees them from blame. 
The Germans entered and occupied Louvain with little or 
no opposition, and pushed a fairly strong advance guard 
through the town in the direction of Antwerp. This 
advance guard was heavily attacked by a portion of the 
Belgian army, was defeated, and fled in panic and com- 
plete disorder back towards Louvain. The Germans in 
Louvain took these fugitives for a Belgian attack and fired 
on them, and they fired back. Very soon there was a 
general mix-up on a large scale. The defeated advance 
guard was being fired into by the Belgians on Jne side 
and by their own comrades on the other. The civilians in 
the town also thought that Louvain was being attacked 
and was about to be retaken by the Belgians. They were 
determined to do their bit, so they added to the general 
confusion by. firing o-ff all the guns they had left, and, 
if they had none, throwing furniture, hot water, and any- 
thing else handy on the heads of the Germans in the streets. 
A certain number of Germans were killed and injured in 
this way, and the German soldiers, furious not only at 
this but, when they found out their mistake, at having 
massacred their own comrades, got completely out of con- 



REMOVAL TO A STRAFE CAMP 61 

trol and sacked and burnt the greater part of the town. 
Kicq, at the time when this happened, was in a hospital 
at Antwerp, so that his is only a second-hand account, but 
I think that most intelligent Belgian officers believe this 
to be a fairly true explanation. 

To return to our story again — just inside the palisade 
was a group of wooden huts which I imagine were the 
offices of the camp. We were led through the guardroom, 
a filthy place with wooden benches running all down the 
middle, on which still filthier Bavarians were sleeping, 
drinking beer, or playing cards, and were locked into a 
small room at the end. We had some food left, and with 
the help of some nasty looking soup which the Germans 
brought us we made quite a good meal. There were wooden 
beds and mattresses in the room, and luckily not sufficient 
light to allow us to examine them too closely, so we passed 
quite a good night. 

Next morning I asked to see the Commandant, who 
seemed quite a nice old fellow, and requested permission 
to go over the camp, so that I could testify to other officers 
that our prisoners were well treated. He answered that 
to grant my request was impossible. "In that case," I 
said, "I can only draw the conclusion that you will not let 
me see the camp because our prisoners are not treated as 
they should be." The old man said he was very sorry, 
but it was absolutely "verboten," but he assured me that 
the prisoners were well treated. An hour or so later an 
K.O.O. with a rifle turned up, and we were marched off 
to Tort 9. The whole country round Fort 9, which lies 
due south of Ingolstadt, is very flat and uninteresting. In 
fact, it is one of the few really ugly places I remember 



62 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

seeing in Bavaria. There are a few small woods and 
clumps of trees about, but as there is very little under- 
growth in them, they afford only a very temporary shelter 
to an escaping prisoner — as Medlicott and I found out 
later. The fort, as you approach it from the north, has 
the appearance of an oblong mound of earth, some 350 
yards long and about 60 feet high. There is a moat 
4 to 6 feet deep all around the place, but a small rampart 
on the outer side of the moat prevents the latter being 
seen from the south till the outer gate into the first court- 
yard has been passed. 

We tramped along the main high road which leads 
over the Danube directly south out of Ingolstadt, and 
after walking for well over an hour we began looking 
about for some signs of a camp, but could see nothing 
resembling our previous ideas of one. The guard informed 
us, however, that we had only 200 metres to go, and soon 
we turned sharp to the right towards the mound before 
mentioned. We then saw a sentry on one of the two bat- 
tery positions which flanked the fort, and another on the 
top of the mound. In another minute or two we came to 
an iron door in a half-brick, half-earthen wall. Our guard 
looked through a peep-hole in this and said we could not 
go in yet, as Appell was taking place. I had a look through 
the peep-hole. Some 40 yards across a sort of courtyard 
was a moat, about 15 yards broad, over which there was a 
roadway with a heavy iron and wire gate, guarded by a 
sentry. The road led over the moat into another courtyard, 
at the back of which was a brick wall about 20 feet high 
with half a dozen large iron barred windows in it. On 



KEMOVAL TO A STKAFE CAMP 63 

the top of the wall was some 40 feet of earth, sloping back- 
wards and upwards to the center "caponniere," the highest 
part of the mound, where a sentry stood. In the center 
of the wall was an enormous iron door leading, to all 
appearances, into the heart of the small hill in front of us. 
Through the peep-hole I could follow the moat for 50 or 
60 yards in either direction. On the far side of the moat 
the ground sloped up slightly for 15 metres to a brick wall 
about 15 to 20 feet (surmounted by 4 or 5 metres of earth) 
with heavily barred windows at regular intervals all the 
way along it. The windows in this wall were the windows 
of our living rooms, and on the strip of grass between 
the windows and the moat sentries walked up and down. 
In the courtyard about 200 prisoners-of-war of various 
nationalities appeared to be mixed up in a very irregular 
manner; in fact, a good deal of movement was noticeable 
among them, and from the confused shouting which went 
on I gathered something exciting must be happening. 
Suddenly the whole mob broke up and began to stream 
back into the fort through the main gate. A German from 
the inside opened the outer gate, and we were marched 
across the moat, a sentry unlocking the gate for us, into the 
inner courtyard. Suddenly I saw Milne, whom I had last 
seen at St. Omer in 25 Squadron. He was wearing an 
old flying coat and was bareheaded. He greeted me with 
enthusiasm and surprise. A sentry tried to stop us from 
meeting, but Milne took no notice of him, and we shook 
hands. Several other Frenchmen and Englishmen came 
crowding round us, and then some one began roaring out 
orders in German at the top of his voioe about 10 yards off. 



64 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

I looked up and saw a German captain, who looked like a 
middle-aged well-to-do shopkeeper (which in fact he was), 
in a furious rage, gesticulating like a windmill. I gathered 
that Kicq and I were to be prevented from talking to the 
other prisoners. I thought that we had probably better 
obey him, but none of the other prisoners paid any atten- 
tion whatever to the noise he was making till several sentries 
bustled us through the main door and into the Command- 
ant's bureau. As we were going in, an Englishman in a 
beard passed by the side of me saying, "Have you any- 
thing to hide ?" My compass, which had been given my by 
a Belgian at Clausthal, was hidden in my big baggage, so 
I shook my head. 

A young French officer was in the bureau, and a furious 
discussion took place between him and the Commandant, 
who immediately began to shout and gesticulate. As far 
as I could make out, the Frenchman had been arrested 
at Appell for refusing to stand still. The Frenchman 
answered that his feet got cold because, owing to the total 
incompetency of the Germans, they took much longer than 
was necessary at Appell. "Aus dem Bureau!" (Leave 
the office immediately!) yelled the Commandant. The 
Frenchman tried to speak again, but was drowned by the 
shouts of "No, no, go out at once, you must not speak to 
me like that. "Pourquoi non, il n'est pas la maniere 
d'addresser un officier Frangais," answered the French- 
man; and as he spoke the door behind me opened and 
another Frenchman entered who, pointing his finger at the 
Commandant, said, "Oui, oui, je suis temoin, je suis 
temoin," and went out again. The first Frenchman bowed 



REMOVAL TO A STKAFE CAMP 65 

in a formal manner to the Commandant, who had started 
to yell "Posten, Posten," and went out of the door just 
as the sentry entered. The Commandant mopped his 
brow and seemed almost on the verge of collapse, when 
Kieq protested against the way he had spoken to us when 
ordering us into the bureau. This raised another small 
storm, in which Kicq easily held his own. The Command- 
ant calmed himself with an effort. 

We were then ashed the usual questions' by an Unter- 
offizier and told that we should be in Room 45. Our 
hand baggage was then searched, and my rucksack was 
taken from me. To reach !No. 45 we went along a very 
dark underground passage dimly lighted by an oil lamp. 
At the end of the passage there were some enormous iron 
doors. These led to one of the two inner courtyards of 
the fort, and were then shut, as they always were during 
Appell. A few yards before coming to the door we turned 
sharply to the right into an extremely dark arched opening. 
The whole passage was built of solid blocks of stone and 
had a vaulted roof. After groping our way round a 
turning, we came suddenly into another passage some 70 
yards long, and also of stone. On the left hand was a bare 
stone wall running up 15 feet to the roof; on the right 
there were doors about every 4 yards with numbers on 
them ranging from 39 to 56. Light and air were brought 
into the passage by square ventilator shafts in the roof 
which ran up through the 15 feet of earth to the pathway 
above. At the top of the ventilators glass frames on very 
strong iron supports prevented the rain from coming in 
and the prisoners from getting out. Needless to say, the 



66 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

passage was the coldest and draughtiest place it is possible 
to imagine. Owing to the mound of earth on top, no heat 
but much dampness found its way into the passage. At the 
far end were the latrines. These were very insanitary, 
and the smell of them pervaded the whole passage, into 
which our living rooms opened. In certain winds they 
became almost intolerable. A detailed description of them 
will have to be given later, as they played an important 
part in many attempts to escape. 

Room 45 was about half-way along the passage, and we 
found Captain Grinnell-Milne, R.F.C., Oliphant, Fair- 
weather, and Medlicott, R.F.C., already installed there. 
The dimensions of the room were, at a guess, about 12 
yards by 5 yards. The floor was asphalt and the walb 
were whitewashed brick. The walls and the ceiling were 
both curved and together formed an exact semicircle. In 
fact, the room was very much of the shape and size of a 
Nisson hut. This is an excellent shape from the point 
of view of strength, but not very convenient for hanging 
pictures or putting up shelves. The end of the room 
farthest from the door was mainly occupied by two large 
windows looking out over a strip of grass which sloped 
gradually down to the moat, 15 yards away. These win- 
dows were heavily barred with square one-inch bars, three 
to a window, and sentries passed along the strip of grass 
from time to time and glanced suspiciously in. If they 
saw anything that interested them they stood at the window 
and stared in. There was obviously no such thing as 
privacy. In each of these rooms five or six men lived 
and cooked and fed and slept. 



CHAPTEK Vin 

FORT 9, INGOLSTADT 

IK the early days of the war Fort 9, Ingolstadt, had 
been, according to the oldest inmates of the prison- 
house, a quiet, well-behaved sort of place, but for the 
past six months the Germans had collected into the fort 
all the "mauvais sujets" from the German point of view, 
and all those prisoners-of-war who had made attempts to 
escape from other camps. There were about 150 officer 
prisoners in the place, and of these at least 130 had made 
successful attempts to escape from other camps, and had 
only been recaught after from three days' to three weeks' 
temporary freedom. 

When Kicq and I arrived, 75 per cent, of the prisoners 
were scheming and working continually to this end. Some 
had tramped to the Dutch or Swiss frontiers and had been 
captured there ; some had taken the train (those who could 
speak German) and had been eventually caught by some 
mischance; and all firmly believed that it was only the 
blackest misfortune which had prevented them from cross- 
ing the frontier, and were convinced that, if once more 
they could get clear of the camp, they would reach neutral 
territory and freedom. Escaping, and how it should be 
done, what to beware of and what to risk, what food to 
take, what clothes to wear, maps, compasses, and how to 

67 



68 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

get them, how to look after your feet and how to light a 
fire without smoke, where to cross the frontier and what 
route to take, and a hundred and one things connected with 
escaping, were the most frequent subjects of conversation 
and rarely out of the thoughts of the great majority of the 
prisoners at Fort 9. Each man was ready to give the bene- 
fit of his experiences, his advice, and his immediate help 
to any one who asked for them. In fact, we pooled our 
knowledge. The camp was nothing less than an escaping 
club. Each man was ready to help any one who wished 
to escape and had a plan, quite regardless of his own risk 
or the punishment he might bring upon himself. For 
courts-martial no one cared twopence, and nearly every 
one in the fort had done considerable spells of solitary 
confinement. 

There were in the camp, mainly among the Frenchmen, 
some of the most ingenious people I have ever come across. 
Men who could make keys which would unlock any door : 
men who could temper and jag the edge of an old table- 
knife so that it would cut iron bars: expert photographers 
(very useful for copying maps) : engineering experts who 
would be called in to give advice on any tunnel which 
was being dug: men who spoke German perfectly: men 
who shammed insanity perfectly, and many, like myself, 
who were ready to risk a bit to get out, but had no parlor 
tricks. One had escaped from his prison camp dressed 
as a German officer : another had escaped in a dirty clothes 
basket, and another had been wheeled out of the camp 
hidden in a muck tub : another sportsman had painted his 
face green to look like a water-lily and had swum the 



FORT 9, INGOLSTADT 69 

moat in daylight under the sentry's nose. It is. impossible 
to recount all the various means that were tried, and suc- 
cessfully tried, in order to escape from camps. Forgery, 
bribery, impersonation, with an utter disregard of risks 
of being shot, all found their advocates in Fort 9. In 
spite of the fact that every man was ready to do his utmost, 
at whatever personal risk, to help a friend who was trying 
to escape, each man was advised to keep his own plans of 
escape strictly to himself. It was not that we were afraid 
of spies among ourselves, but it was impossible to be quite 
sure of all the orderlies, who were either Frenchmen or 
Russians. There was one French orderly of whom we had 
serious suspicion but could never prove anything against 
him. 

It can be readily understood that the Germans, having 
herded some 150 officers with the blackest characters into 
one camp, took considerable precautions to keep them there. 
From the moat on one side to the moat on the other, the 
fort at the broadest part measured about 300 yards. On 
the southern side, as can be seen from the sketch map, 
the moat ran around the fort in a semi-oval, and steep 
grass banks sloped from the top of the ramparts to the edge 
of the moat, beside which was a narrow footpath patroled 
by sentries. On the southern side the ramparts were 
higher than on the northern, and the top must have been 
50 feet above the moat. Along the top there was a narrow 
footpath where the prisoners were allowed to walk. From 
this path we got a good view of the surrounding country, 
which was completely under cultivation and very flat, with 
small wooded downs in the distance to relieve the monotony. 



70 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

Prom the path, we were able to see the moat, "but, owing 
to the shelving of the bank, not the sentry in the path below. 
Just inside the parados there were at regular intervals 
heavily built traverses, and between the traverses glass 
ventilators poked up from the rooms and passages which 
lay under the southern ramparts. Erom the parados a 
grass bank sloped down to a broad gravel walk, and from 
this another steep bank dropped some 20 feet into the 
inner court. The barred window from the orderlies' quar- 
ters, the kitchen, and the solitary confinement cells looked 
out from this bank into the courtyard. On the northern 
side a similar bank, but without windows in it, sloped up 
to the gravel path, which ran all round the fort. Only a 
7-foot parapet, over which we were forbidden to look, 
bounded the gravel path on the north side; but the rules 
did not forbid us looking into the outer courtyard, where 
Appell was usually held. On the south side the moat was 
about 40 yards broad and on the north only about 16 yards, 
and though we never found out the depth accurately we 
imagined it to be about 5 feet at the deepest part. The 
whole space inside was formed into two courtyards by a 
very broad central passage leading from the main door to 
the center "caponniere" on the south side. The earth ridge 
on the top of the passage formed the highest point in the 
fort. On it was a flagstaff where flags were hoisted at each 
German victory, imaginary or otherwise. A sentry was 
always posted there. In the day time there were eighteen 
sentries posted in and around the court, and at night time 
twenty-two posted as I have shown them on the sketch map. 
It was obvious that there were only two possible ways 



FORT 9, INGOLSTADT 71 

of getting out: one was to go out by the main gate past 
three sentries, three gates, and a guardhouse and the other 
was to go through the moat. It was impossible to tunnel 
under the moat. It had been tried, and the water came 
into the tunnel as soon as it got below the water level. 
An aeroplane was the only other solution. That was the 
problem we were up against, and however you looked at 
it, it always boiled down to a nasty cold swim or a colossal 
piece of bluff. 

All the members of Room 45, where I now found myself, 
had previously escaped from other camps. Milne and 
Fairweather, with Milne's brother, then at Custrin, had 
walked out of the main gate of a camp of which I forget 
the name, the brother dressed as a German officer, Fair- 
weather as a soldier, and Milne as a workman. The scheme 
had worked well. They had walked into the commandantur 
as if to see the commandant, and then had pulled off their 
British uniforms in the passage and, leaving them on the 
floor, had calmly walked out of the other door of the com- 
mandantur and passed all the sentries without any diffi- 
culty. Milne's brother spoke excellent German, and they 
said that their "get-up" had been very good and had been 
the result of some months' hard work. Oliphant and 
Medlicott 1 had been caught together within a mile or two 
of the Dutch frontier. Poole and these two had escaped 
together from a camp by an audacious bit of wire-cutting 
in full daylight, suitable side-shows 1 having been provided 
to keep the sentries occupied. After doing the march on 

1 Lieutenant Medlicott, R.F.C., was later murdered by the Germani 
on his tenth attempt to escape. 



72 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

foot to the frontier at an almost incredible speed, they lay 
up in a wood a couple of miles or so from the frontier 
sentries, intending to cross that night Most unluckily 
for them, the day being Sunday (always the most danger- 
ous day for escaping prisoners, as there are so many people 
about), a party of sportsmen came upon them. Oliphant 
had his boots on and managed to get away, but Poole 
and Medlicott were collared. A sentry marched them 
along to a sort of barn, opened the door, and entered 
before them. They slammed the door on him and bolted. 
Poole got clean away and crossed the frontier that night, but 
Medlicott was caught after a short, sharp chase. Oliphant 
took a wrong compass-bearing during the night, lost his 
way, and was caught the following morning. They really 
had very bad luck. All three ought to have crossed, as 
they were very determined fellows, and all of them had 
had considerable previous experience in escaping. 

We used to talk bitterly of prisoners' luck at Ingolstadt, 
and one of the things which induced us to keep on trying 
was the belief that our luck would turn. Medlicott espe- 
cially had had four or five attempts before he came to Ingol- 
stadt. One of these was most spectacular, and I must give 
a short account of it. I am not sure out of which camp 
the escape was made, but one-time inmates will perhaps 
recognize it A road ran alongside one of the main build- 
ings of the camp. On the far side of the road was a steep 
bank with a bar'bed wire fence on the top, and from there 
terraced gardens sloped steeply up a hill and away from 
the camp. The building was several stories high, and 
Medlicott and a companion decided that it would be pos- 



FOKT 9, INGOLSTADT 73 

sible to fix up a drawbridge from the second-story windows, 
and from there jump over the road and the wire on to the 
terrace. Every detail was fully thought out. They had 
a 9-foot plank, the near end of which they intended to 
place on the window-sill, and the far end would he sup- 
ported by a rope from the top of the window. This would 
form an extremely rickety bridge, but though they would 
have a considerable drop, 12 feet or so, they had only quite 
a short distance to jump forward, as the road was quite 
narrow. Arrangements had been made to put out the elec- 
tric light and to cut the telephone wires simultaneously, 
as a sentry was posted in the road and they had to jump 
over his headi The most suitable room was occupied by a 
Belgian general, and they decided to make the attempt 
from there. When they entered the Belgian's room on 
the selected night and informed him of what was about 
to happen, he absolutely refused to allow his room to' be 
used for such a purpose. Medlicott explained to him (in 
bad French) that they were going from that room at once, 
whatever the general said, and that if he made a noise, 
they would be compelled to use force to keep him quiet. 
The general started shouting "Assassin!" and "A moi!" 
"A moi !" but they sat on him and gagged him and tied 
him to the bed They then got out their plank and suc- 
cessfully jumped over the road and got clean away. They 
were recaught, however, about four days afterwards, I 
don't remember how. At their court-martial they were 
complimented by the President on their escape, and were 
given the lightest possible punishment (about two months 
apiece, I think) for the numerous crimes they had com- 



74 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

mitted. The Belgian general was brought up as a witness 
against them, but could say nothing without making him- 
self a laughing-stock or worse ! 

The other Englishmen at Fort 9 all lived in Room 42. 
They were Major Gaskell, Captain May, Captain Gilli- 
land, Captain Batty Smith, Lieutenant Buckley, together 
with Lieutenant Bellison, a Frenchman, who spoke English 
with complete fluency, though vith a bad accent. I know 
that when I first went to Ingolstadt they had some scheme 
on for tunneling out of the inner court through the ram- 
part so as to come out half-way up the bank above the 
moat on the south side. It was a good idea, but never 
got very far, as the beginning of the tunnel was dis- 
covered by the Germans' — without Boom 42 being in- 
criminated, however. I do not remember any time in 
Fort 9 when there was not some scheme or other in the 
English rooms for escaping, and we all occupied some 
hours nearly every day in perfecting our arrangements 
for escaping. There were several excellent maps in the 
fort, especially amongst the Frenchmen, and very many 
laborious hours were spent in copying these in different 
colored inks. Several people even made two or three 
copies, so as to be ready to try again immediately in 
the event of their being recaptured with a map in their 
possession. A certain amount of map copying was done 
by photography. Cameras were strictly prohibited, but 
there was at least one in the fort, which had got in I 
don't know how, and which did a lot of useful work. 

The Frenchmen in the fort were, as a whole, a most 
excellent lot of fellows, and the English and French were 



FORT 9, INGOLSTADT 75 

the very best of friends. Colonel Tardieu, the senior 
French officer, was one of the old school. "He thanked 
whatever gods there be for his unconquerable soul," and 
would have no truck with the Germans. He asked no 
favors from them, and would show no gratitude if they 
offered him any. He protested formally but vehemently 
against such insults as being asked to sit at the same table 
as the German officer who was guarding him on a railway 
journey. He said that eating at the same table was in a 
way a sign of friendship, and to ask a French colonel to eat 
with a German was an insult. I hear he was sentenced 
to a long term of imprisonment for this and many similar 
offenses. How could we all help having the greatest 
admiration for the unbending spirit of this man, who had 
his own rigid ideas of honor and lived up to them to the 
letter, in spite of a feeble body by no means fit to with- 
stand the strain of continuous antagonism and physical 
discomfort? Commandant de Goys, who escaped from 
Germany a few months after I did, was in the French 
Flying Corps, and a very well-known man in it, I believe. 
At one time he had been sent by the French to reorganize 
the Turkish aviation corps, and told some amusing stories 
of his meetings with Germans there who were simulta- 
neously reorganizing the Turkish army. He had escaped 
from some other camp in a clothes-basket, and had very 
nearly got across the Swiss frontier. He had a perfect 
mania for attempting to escape in baskets, and tried twice 
more at Ingolstadt. He was a good-looking, strongly 
made, athletic fellow of forty or thereabouts, and a great 
friend of Major Gaskell's. Through Major Gaskell I 



76 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

very soon got to know die Goys very well. Then there was 
Michel, a big fat man, whose father had been in a very 
high position in the French army but had retired just 
before the war. He was an extremely nice fellow, and 
very keen and quite good at games. He ancl Desseaux, 
also a charming fellow, were the best Erench hockey and 
tennis players in the fort. One of the most interesting 
people in the fort, and certainly the best read in Erench 
literature, was Decugis, the son of Colonel Decugis, who 
took some considerable part in the invention of the Erench 
75 mm. gun. I gathered that he had led a pretty fast 
life before the war. He was a small dark fellow, very 
strong and wiry, and French to his finger-tips. He used 
to give me Erench lessons, and he learnt to talk English 
very quickly. Le Long, La Croix, and de Robiere and 
several others were nothing but children, and they were 
always in irrepressibly good spirits. They were great men 
at our fancy-dress balls, when they usually came marvel- 
ously got up as ladies of no' reputation, with immense 
succesa They were ready to attempt to escape, play the 
fool, or be a nuisance to the Germans at any time night 
or day with equal good humor. Room 39, where they 
lived a sort of hand-to-mouth existence, was always un- 
tidy and always noisy. They preferred it like that. 

Then there was a French colonial colonel and Moretti, 
both CorsicanS'. The colonel had been in command of the 
disciplinary battalion of the "Joyeux," that is to say, the 
Erench criminals who do their military service in Africa 
in a special military organization. You can well imagine 
that the colonel of the battalion, to which the most incor-' 



FOKT 9, INGOLSTADT 77 

rigible cases are sent, is likely to be a pretty hard case 
himself. The French used to say that all Corsicans, as 
isoon as they get a command of any sort, imagine them- 
selves to he budding Napoleons. This was rather the 
case with the colonel. He had been badly hit on the head 
by a bit of shell, and was not always quite sane. He 
was a middle-sized man, very strong and active, with close- 
cropped hair and rugged face, and I am sure he would 
stick at absolutely nothing to gain his ends. He consid- 
ered himself a great strategist (with regard to escaping 
at any rate), but it was Moretti who had the brains and 
ingenuity, as well as the skill to carry out the plans. 

Moretti was very short but wonderfully well made, 
with a round cheerful face and a funny little flat nose. 
He was always laughing or ragging some one. He and 
Buckley were inseparable companions in crime and stole 
oil, potatoes, coal, or wood together, keeping up a con- 
tinuous flow of back-chat all the time. He had been an 
adjutant chef (sergeant-major) in a "Joyeux" battalion at 
the age of 28, which is extraordinarily young, considering 
that only the very best N.C.O.'s can be used for such work, 
and had won his commission in France. Having been 
employed for the eight years previous to the war in man- 
aging and outwitting the most ingenious criminals that 
exist when they tried to escape, he knew just about all 
there was to be known about stealing, cutting iron bars, 
picking locks, etc. He told wonderful stories of the doings 
of his "Joyeux" in France. He used to say they were 
the best troops in the world, and I believe they were 
extraordinarily good as troupes d'assaut. He told us how 



78 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

in the early days of the war 450 of his "Joyeux" had 
stormed a trench system and killed 600 Germans with 
their knives alone. That was at Maisonette, I think. He 
bad some wonderful stories of the second battle of Ypres, 
where the Germans were driven back into the canal which 
they had crossed at Bixschoote, and were killed almost to 
8 man. He saw more corpses there, he said, than at 
iVerdun. When his "Joyeux" were billeted behind the 
lines, a special warning had to be sent to the inhabitants 
to lock up all their belongings. 

There were, of course, a number of other Frenchmen 
faho helped us, and whom we helped at various times, and 
who practically without exception were our very good 
friends, but I think I have mentioned those with whom 
we came most in contact. Among the Russians there were 
several excellent fellows, but as a whole we did not find 
them very interesting. Curiously, few of them spoke any 
language but their own really well, and except for Oli- 
phant, and afterwards Spencer, none of us spoke much 
Russian. They were very generous fellows, and when- 
ever they did 1 have any food, which was seldom, they used 
to give dinners and sing-songs. With regard to escaping, 
if you needed anything such as a leather coat or a great- 
coat (the Russian greatcoat can, with little alteration, be 
turned into a very respectable German officer's- greatcoat), 
you could be sure to get it as a gift or by barter from the 
Russians if they could possibly spare it. The difficulty 
jbf saying anything about them is added to by the fact that 
I cannot recall their real names. 

"Charley" was a very rough diamond, but as generous 



FORT 9, INGOLSTADT 79 

and kind-hearted a fellow as one could meet anywhere ; he 
and Buckley were good friends. He spoke German per- 
fectly and played hockey, so I also got to know him a hit 
hetter than most of the others. Lustianseff was a Russian 
aviator. He spoke French well, and used to teach me 
Russian. So did Kotcheskoff, a regular Hercules of 
a fellow, hut mentally an ahsolute babe — a sort of Joe 
Gargery. He was universally liked, and continually had 
his leg pulled by the Frenchmen in de Goys' room, where 
he and Lustianseff lived. Kotcheskoff could talk English 
not much better than I could talk Russian ; he also talked 
French and German very badly; consequently he and I 
could never manage much of a conservation with one an- 
other without the help of all four languages. There were, 
however, several Russians, real good fellows, whom I never 
got to know well. One of them had escaped from a camp 
with some friends, and had reached the frontier after walk- 
ing for over thirty days. His friends had got across, but 
he had been recaptured. I heard a short time ago that he 
had escaped and had crossed the Swiss frontier at the 
same place as Buckley and I did. 

Our day at Fort 9 was regulated to a certain extent by 
'Appells or roll-calls. When I first went to Ingolstadt 
there were three Appells a day — at 7 a.m., at 11.30 a.m., 
and between 4 and 7 in the evening, according to the 
time of year. After I had been there a month or so a 
fourth Appell was added at 9 o'clock at night. After this 
fourth Appell, the door leading from each wing to the 
center of the fort was locked and bolted, so that the two 
wings were cut off from communication with each other. 



80 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

The 7 a.m. Appell took place whilst we were still in bed. 
A German N.C.O. came round and flashed a torch in each 
of our faces or satisfied himself that we were all there. 
Immediately afterwards the great iron doors leading into 
the inner courtyards were opened. It was in these inner 
courtyards that we played hockey and tennis and football, 
and did our exercises, etc. 

The rules of the fort stated that the 11.30 Appell should 
take place either in our rooms or in the outer courtyard, 
the place where it was being held when Kicq and I first 
arrived, at the discretion of the Commandant. As the 
feeling between the Germans and the prisoners became 
more and more bitter, the Appell outside became really 
very exciting, and from the German point of view an al- 
most intolerable performance. We always used to object 
to this outside Appell owing to the nuisance of turning out 
and to the waste of time, as the Germans never managed 
to count us in less than half an hour. I will say that they 
had a pretty difficult task; we never stood still and gave 
them a fair chance, as the general spirit of Fort 9 was 
to be insubordinate and disobedient whenever possible, so 
the Germans more or less dropped this outside Appell and 
only had it when the CO. had some order or Strafe to 
read out to the prisoners as a whole. If the Germans 
wished the 11.30 Appell outside, they gave one ring on an 
electric bell which sounded in our passage, and if inside, 
two ringsu As 11 a.m. was our usual time for breakfast, 
we used to listen for the second ring with some impatience, 
About ten minutes after the bell had rung for outside 
Appell the greater part of the prisoners would congregate 



FOKT 9, INGOLSTADT 81 

in the outer courtyard. They turned up in any sort of 
costume, smoking cigarettes and talking and shouting and 
laughing. In the courtyard on the far side of the moat 
a guard of some twenty or thirty Hun soldiers was drawn 
up, and on either side of the main gate stood eight or nine 
more villainous looking Bavarian soldiers with rifles and 
fixed bayonets. 

The CO. usually kept us waiting for a minute or two, 
being perhaps under the delusion that we might get into 
some sort of order if we were given time. He came from 
the bureau through the main gate followed by his. Feld- 
webel (sergeant-major) and several N.C.O.'s, and, though 
the majority used to take no notice of him whatever, he 
was usually greeted by some confused shouting in four 
languages. By this time nine-tenths of the officers had 
ranged themselves very roughly five deep on the right- 
hand side of the main gate, which was immediately closed 
by a cordon of sentries. Several officers would continue to 
stroll about behind the ranks or wander from one part to 
another to talk to friends ; and in several parts of the line, 
and especially at the English and French end of the line, 
little knots of men would hold animated discussions of the 
latest news^ The front ranks stood firm, but the rear ranks 
paid little or no attention to the Germans. On the left of 
the gateway the orderlies were drawn up and stood in a 
fairly regular and silent mob, highly amused at the dis- 
order in the ranks of the officers. The CO. would stand 
in front for perhaps a couple of minutes, hoping vainly 
that things would calm down. He then saluted us for- 
mally. A few Frenchmen, and most Englishmen and 



82 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

Russians, who happened to be looking in that direction 
answered his salute. Then a scene- something as follows 
used to take place. 

The CO. called out, "Meine Herren," then louder, 
"Meine Herren, etwas Euhe bitte." This had some small 
effect, though there would be one or two cries of "Com- 
prends pas," "Parle pas Bosche," of which the Germans 
took no notice. One or two Englishmen whose breakfasts 
were getting cold would try to make the Frenchmen shut 
up, but only added to the noise. Two N.C.O.'s were then 
sent off to count us. One went along the front and one 
along the rear of the ranks trying to get the officers to 
stand in files of five. As the prisoners were continually 
moving about this looked an impossible task, but they 
eventually used to manage it, though they sometimes had 
to give up in despair and start again. As soon as this was 
over the numbers were reported to the Feldwebel, and two 
more N.C.O.'s were sent into the building to count the sick 
who had remained in their rooms, while we stood stamp- 
ing our feet in the cold and waiting for them. Perhaps 
some Frenchman would call out to an Englishman, "Savez- 
vous combien de prisioniers Bosches les Anglais ont pris 
hier ?" — "Onze mille trois cent quatre vingt deux Bosches." 
A certain amount of laughter followed, and the ranks would 
break up more or less and start walking about and talking. 
After ten minutes , wait, the !N".C.O.'s who had been count- 
ing the sick would return and give their counts to the 
Feldwebel. Sometimes the tally was right and sometimes 
wrong 1 — if the latter, the whole thing had to be done over 



FOKT 9, INGOLSTADT 83 

again, accompanied by cries of derision, contempt, and 
impatience from the prisoners. 

Very often the riot got so bad that the CO., after glanc- 
ing anxiously over his shoulder, beckoned the guard to 
come in to overawe us. The old Landsturm, as they came 
pouring through the gate over the moat, were greeted with 
hoots and yells. At the order of an 1ST. CO. they loaded — 
this had no effect on the Frenchmen, who laughed and 
ragged the CO. and sentries in French and bad German. 
But why did the Germans never shoot ? It is not difficult 
to understand. We had no reason to suppose that the 
Commandant was tired of life, and we knew that his 
Feldwebel was an arrant coward ; and the one thing quite 
certain was, that if the order to fire on us was given, the 
first thing we should do would be to kill the Commandant 
and the Feldwebel, and they knew it very well — and that 
was our safeguard. 

Many times during those outside 'Appells at Fort 9 
I was sure we were pretty close to a massacre — and the 
massacred would not have been confined to the prisoners. 
There were in that small courtyard only about forty armed 
Germans, all oldish men, and there were of us, counting 
the orderlies, nearly 200 extremely active men. We should 
have won easily — and the Germans knew it. At any time 
we wished, we could have taken that fort and escaped, 
though if we had, none of us would have got out of the 
country alive. You must understand then that the Ger- 
mans did not tolerate this insubordination because they 
liked it or because they were too kind-hearted to fire, but 
because for the sake of their own skins they dared not 



84 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

give the order to fire. The prisoners, on the other hand, 
were prepared to risk a good deal for the sake of demon- 
strating how little they cared for German discipline, and 
for the sake of keeping up their own spirits, but most 
especially just for the fun of ragging the hated Bosche. 

Towards the end of my time at Ingolstadt, the Germans, 
as I have already said, only had Appell outside when they 
had something to announce to the prisoners. In the momen- 
tary hush which usually occurred when we were expect- 
ing the Commandant to dismiss us, the Feldwebel would 
step forward, produce a paper, and start to read in Ger- 
man. This was always the signal for a wild outcry — 
"Comprends pas!" "Assassin!" "Assassin!" (for, as 
I will show later, the Feldwebel had good reason to be 
unpopular), "Parle pas Bosche !" "Can't understand that 
damned language," "Ne pomenaio!" (Don't understand) 
from a Russian, etc. The Feldwebel would carry on, 
white with funk, till the end, when the CO. would seize 
the first moment in which he could make himself heard 
to dismissi us with the words, "Appell ist fertig, meine 
Herren." If the cordon of sentries in front of the main 
gate happened to hear the dismissal, they got out of the 
light quickly ; if not, they were brushed aside before they 
knew what was happening. Why no one ever got stuck 
with a. bayonet I never could make out. 

So much for the 11.30 Appell. Very much more often 
than not it took place in our rooms. We carried on with 
our breakfasts or whatever we were doing, and an N.C.O., 
after giving a tap at the door, came in, made certain that 
every one was present, and went out again. Five minutes 



FOKT 9, INGOLSTADT 85 

or so later the electric bell would ring, and Appell was 
over. The doors into the inner courtyard were then opened 
again — they were always closed during Appell — and every- 
thing was done with the minimum of inconvenience to 
ourselves. The time of the next Appell varied with the 
time of the year. It took place about half an hour before 
dark, and after it the doors into the inner courts were shut 
for the night, but the two wings were not locked off from 
one another till after the 9 o'clock Appell, when we were 
visited in our rooms in just the same way. Between 4 
and 9 a sentry was left in the long passage in each of the 
wings. Poor chap ! He used to have an uncomfortable 
time trying to stop us from stealing the lamps in the pas- 
sage. After 9 o'clock he was withdrawn, and, as I have 
already said, the doors at the end of the passage were 
locked and we were left to our own devices. 

The above description of an outside Appell is by no 
means an exaggeration. Certainly they were sometimes 
less rowdy, but not often. I remember one Appell was 
taken by General Peters in person. General Peters was 
the CO. of all the camps of Ingolstadt and appeared one 
morning with some special Strafe or reprisal to read out 
to us. If I remember right, it had something to do with 
alleged ill-treatment of German officers in France. The 
General was not popular, and even more noise was made 
than usual. Just before the cordon was drawn across the 
door, a French captain walked down the whole front line 
carrying a chair and sat down throughout the Appell. 
When the Feldwebel stood forward to read his document, 
lie was greeted with the usual cries of "Assassin!" and 



86 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

"Pari© pas Bosche!" and finished in a storm of howls 
which completely drowned his voice. The interpreter then 
proceed to read a French translation, which was listened 
to with attention, the reading being merely punctuated by 
cheers and laughter and hoots at the interesting points. 
After the Russian shooting affair, which happened towards 
the end of our time at the fort, one Russian always used 
to turn up with a iarge Red Cross flag on a pole. When 
things began to get really exciting, I own I used to edge 
away from the flag, as I felt sure the Germans would fire 
their first volley into the group round it. 



CHAPTER IX 

CAPTOKS AND CAPTIVES 

ONE morning just before Appell, a Frenchman 
came along the passage and announced in each 
room that Colonel Tardieu was not going out to 
Appell that morning, and would be obliged if other officers 
would remain in their rooms when the bell went. We did 
not know exactly what the reason was, and I don't know 
now, but I think the Colonel had some right on his side — 
as much right as we usually had in Fort 9. Soon after 
this announcement a deputation of Russians waited on 
Major Gaskell to find out what the English intended to do. 
I may as well say here that Gaskell and most of the other 
Englishmen (myself included) did not altogether approve 
of this rowdyism on Appell, as we thought it might lead 
to serious restriction of our exercise and consequently of 
our chances of escaping, which was of course the only 
thing worth considering. 

As the Russian colonel insisted on acting as interpreter 
for the deputation, the discussion lasted a quarter of an 
hour before we understood that the Russians thought it 
Avould be better to go out, as they considered it probable 
that the Germans would treat our refusal as an organized 
mutiny. But they were, they said, prepared to follow our 

lead. 

87 



88 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

Gaskell and I then went off to see Colonel Tardieu. The 
Colonel said that, though it was best for us to stick to- 
gether, this ease was a purely personal matter, and we 
could please ourselves — he could only say that he was not 
going out, and that the French would follow his lead. 
Gaskell and I determined to compromise by leaving the 
matter unsettled, but to go out ourselves to Appell very late. 
In this way it was quite impossible for the Germans to 
prove organized mutiny against us, and equally impossible 
to hold Appell outside — and the whole thing could 
easily be put down to mismanagement and the lack of 
clear orders on the part of the Germans. This was, in 
fact, just what happened. The Germans were furious, 
but we pointed out that they had given so many contra- 
dictory orders about Appell that no one knew what they 
wanted. They soon saw that there was no case against 
us for organized mutiny and let the matter drop. The 
real trouble was that the Commandant was a man who 
was simply made to be ragged. 

A more unfortunate choice for a CO. of a strafe camp 
can scarcely be imagined. He was a short, thick-set, dark 
man, about fifty years old, with a large drooping moustache 
and an inclination to stoutness. His hair was rather long, 
and he wore pince-nez for reading. I think he had only 
been C.G. of Fort 9 for a few months when we first went 
there, but some of the prisoners had known him when he 
had been in co mm and of another camp, and he then had 
the reputation for being a kindly and sympathetic com- 
mandant. But when we first knew him constant badger- 
ing had already soured his temper. He was rather like 



CAPTORS AND CAPTIVES 89 

a schoolmaster whose form lias got quite out of control, 
uncertain whether his boys were intending to be insolent 
or not. He never pretended to stand on his dignity — 
his appearance and behavior stamped him as an amiable 
shopkeeper cursed with occasional fits of violent temper. 
Then he laid himself open to be ragged so dreadfully. 
Although he knew little about the business of the fort and 
had to appeal to his Feldwebel on almost every point, yet 
he insisted on attending personally to nearly every officer 
who came into the bureau. The Feldwebel and two ex- 
tremely efficient N.C.O.'s, known as Abel and the "Blue 
Boy," really managed the fort. 

This reminds me of a most amusing caricature of the 
Feldwebel ordering the CO. about, which was pinned up in 
a conspicuous place. I think a Reclamation or official letter 
was sent in to General Peters, protesting against this state 
of affairs., for which the author got a few days' "jug." A 
few days' "jug" was just a farce. The cells were always 
full, and when you got your Bestrafung you were put on a 
waiting list and did your period of solitary confinement 
from three to five months later. One angry Frenchman 
wrote a furious Reclamation talking of justice and favor- 
itism because Oliphant had been allowed to do a "slice 
of four days' jug" out of his turn on the list. A sheaf 
of Reclamations (the word was pronounced in either Ger- 
man or French way) used to go in daily to General Peters 
on every conceivable subject, from serious grievances to 
humorous insults, from a protest against the filthy habits 
of Bavarian Sentries to an accusation of poisoning a pet 
rabbit. 



90 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

Some men used to spend a great deal of their time 
Writing Reclamations conveying veiled insults to the Ger- 
mans. It seemed to me rather a waste of time, but they 
caused a great deal of amusement. It was just like com- 
posing a sarcastically offensive letter to a Government 
department. Some of the results were really very humor- 
ous and witty, but I am afraid they were wasted on the 
Bosche, and I have no doubt they all went straight into 
Peters' wastepaper-basket — at any rate, I never heard of a 
Reclamation having any effect except three days' "jug" 
for the author of the most offensive ones. 

When we first came to the fort we were told that some 
of the French had sworn an oath to drive the Commandant 
off his head. He was pretty far gone. Some of the 
Englishmen, chiefly Oliphant, Medlicott, and Buckley, 
with these Frenchmen, used to get an enormous amount 
of amusement by baiting the old fool. 

I remember once a conversation something as follows: — 

Frenchman. — "The German food you give us is very 
bad." 

Commandant. — "Es tut mir sehr leid, aber " 

Frenchman. — "And it is impossible for any one but a 
Bavarian to eat it without wine." 

"Was meinen Sie, das diirfen Sie nicht sagen," answered 
the Co mm andant furiously. 

"Why won't you give us wine V shouted the Frenchman. 

"You have got no right to speak to me like that." 

"And you don't know how to speak to a French officer ; 
it's disgusting that when you give," etc. 



CAPTORS AND CAPTIVES 91 

"Sofort aus dem Bureau gehen?" (Will you go out 
of the bureau ?) 

Both start shouting simultaneously : 

"Why won't you give us wine ?" 

"Aus dem Bureau. . ^ . I will report you to General 
Peters." 

"Je m'en fous de General Peters — I won't go out till 
you speak politely to a French officer." 

"Go out of this bureau immediately when I tell you to." 

"I won't go till you learn to speak politely to me." 

The Commandant then rushed at the telephone and pre- 
tended to wind the handle violently, but without really 
calling up at all. He put the instrument to his ear and 
said: 

"Herr General Peters. Are you there? I am Haupt- 
mann L'Hirsch. There is a Frenchman in the office who 
won't go away. What shall I do?" 

Slight pause for Peter's reply. Then to the Frenchman 
in French: 

"The General says that you must leave the bureau im- 
mediately." 

"Did the General speak politely V 9 

"Yes." 

"Eh bien je sors." 

I have already given a description of a scene which took 
place the first time I ever entered the bureau — and these 
sort of scenes used to happen daily and hourly. When- 
ever the Commandant lost his temper, which he did with- 
out fail every time, he threw his arms about, clenched 
his fists, gesticulated furiously, and shouted at the top of 



92 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

his voice. Soon after the Bojah affair, which I will 
describe later, when rows of this sort multiplied exceed- 
ingly, he was removed from the fort nothing less than a 
raving maniac with occasional sane intervals. In the 
court-martial which followed the Bojah case, the witnesses 
for the defense attempted to prove that the insane behavior 
of Hauptmann L/Hirsch was the main cause of all trouble 
in Fort 9. In an impartial court of justice, which this 
court-martial was not, I have not the smallest doubt that 
they would have succeeded in proving this, owing to 
L'Hirsch's behavior during the trial. 

The food given us by the Germans was not only very 
nasty, but there was not enough of it to keep a man alive. 
Perhaps this is an exaggeration, as I know that a man can 
keep alive, though weak, with very little food. But lack 
of food to this extent, combined with the hardships of 
a winter at Fort 9, would, I am sure, be enough to kill 
most strong men. Every day each man received a loaf 
of bread, shaped like a bun, about 4^ inches across the 
bottom and 2 inches in depth. It was of a dirty brown 
color and, though unpleasant, it was eatable. Some even 
said they liked it. I don't know what it was made of, 
but I should think from the taste that rye, sawdust, and 
potatoes formed the ingredients, the latter predominating. 
It was sometimes very stodgy, and sometimes sour, but 
on the whole was better bread than we received either at 
Gutersloh or Clausthal. Later on, the size of the loaf 
was reduced by more than a third and the quality deterio- 
rated very much, the percentage of sawdust and other un- 
pleasant ingredients being much increased. We never ate 



CAPTOKS AND CAPTIVES 93 

it unless we were very hard up, but, if left for a few days, 
it became as hard as a brick and was most useful as a 
firelighter. I remember an officer telling us that when he 
was a prisoner at Magdeburg in the early days> of the war, 
the English prisoners had started playing rugger in the 
exercise yard with a piece of bread that had dropped in 
the mud. There was a terrible scene of indignation and 
excitement among the Germans. The guard turned out — 
fixed bayonets — charged — rescued the loaf — arrested every 
one, and I don't remember what happened after that, but 
all the criminals were severely punished. It must have 
been terrible to have been a prisoner in those early day3. 
I heard hundreds of stories from the poor devils who were 
caught in 1914. Some of these stories were funny, some 
were filthy, that is to say, funny to a German mind, and 
some were enough to make a man swear, as many have 
sworn, never to speak to a German in peace time and never 
to show mercy to one in war. 1 

Besides' this ration of bread, we were given a small basin 
of soup daily — it was just greasy hot water with some 
vegetable, nearly always cabbage, in it. The amount of 
meat we received used to provide each of us with one 
helping of meat once every ten days. Two or three times 
during my stay at Ingolstadt I remember the meat was 
quite good, and, if it was eatable at all, we enjoyed it 

The Germans varied their treatment of their prisoners inversely 
with their prospects of victory. When things were going badly with 
them — during most of 1916, for instance — much unnecessary harsh 
ness towards their prisoners was relaxed. When once more their 
hopes of final victory were raised by the invasion of ftoumania 
and the checking of the Somme offensive, the poor prisoners had a 
rough lime. Such is the way with bullies. 



94 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

enormously, as fresh meat was such a welcome change 
after the tinned food which we ate continually. Usually, 
however, it was impossibly tough, and sometimes merely 
a piece of bone and gristle. We tried keeping it for 
several days, but it always got high before it got tender. 
At the end of my time there, when Moretti had been elected 
chef of Room 42, we always used to make soup from it. 
Moretti used it five times for soup before he would throw 
it away, and announced, as he put the soup on the table, 
"La premiere," or "La troisieme seance," or "La 
cinquieme et derniere seance," whichever it was. The 
Germans also gave us a certain amout of perfectly undrink- 
able acorn coffee, and sugar at the rate of about two lumps 
per man per day. Sometimes they gave us some very 
nasty beans and sometimes some really horrible dried 
fish — I think it was haddock. It was very salt, and stank 
so that we used always to throw it away immediately — 
we simply could not stand it in the room. Room 39 used 
to hang all their fish outside the window during the cold 
weather — a revolting sight. It was their reserve rations, 
they said. Some of the Russians managed to eat their 
fish, and I believe there was a French room which had a 
special method of treating it, but it was generally voted 
uneatable throughout the fort. About one moderate sized 
potato per day per head concluded the food rations. 
This may seem a fairly generous allowance of food, even 
if it was not of very high quality, but in reality it was 
very little indeed. A day's rations would work out 
something as follows: one potato, one small plateful of 
hot-water soup, one cup acorn coffee, one lump of sugar, 



CAPTORS AND CAPTIVES 95 

two mouthfuls of fish, one mouthful of meat, four or five 
beans, and the loaf of bread. If any one thinks he can 
live on that, I should like him to try for a few months in 
cold weather. We had not many luxuries and comforts in 
Fort 9, and 1 we did look forward to and enjoy the good 
things to eat that came from home. It is only people 
who have never been hungry who can pretend to be in- 
different about food — that is to say, if they are well and 
in hard training as we were. The arrival of the parcel 
cart was hailed with enormous enthusiasm. I think our 
people at home would have been well repaid for all the 
trouble they took in packing the parcels if they could 
have seen the pleasure it gave us receiving them. Excite- 
ment reached a high pitch when we knew that a map or 
compass was hidden in one of the parcels. 

All the work of the fort — cleaning, cooking, emptying 
dust-bins, etc. — was done by Erench and Russian orderlies 
under the orders of German N.C.O.'s, and when our 
parcels came they were taken out of the cart and wheeled 
in on a hand-cart from the outside courtyard to the packet 
office. There they were sorted by Abel, a German 1ST. CO., 
with the help of a Erench orderly. When this had been 
done, usually the day after the arrival of the parcels, a 
list was put up of those who had received any, just inside 
the main gateway, on the official notice board. The giving 
out of the paquets was 1 a pretty lengthy process, as each 
was opened by Abel or an assistant Hun and carefully 
searched. Each wing alternately was served first 
an orderly warned each room when the parcels :. 
room would be given out This prevented there being a 



96 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

long queue of officers waiting outside the paquet office. A 
sentry stood outside the door and admitted three officers 
at a time. A couple of yards inside the door there was a 
counter right across the room, and on the far side two 
German N.C.O.'s stood, each armed with a knife and a 
skewer — the first for opening the parcels, the latter for 
probing the contents for forbidden articles. You signed 
for your parcels and paid 5 Pf. or 10 Pf. for the cost 
of carting them up. 

The Germans, after showing you the address on the 
outside, cut them open and examined the contents, some- 
times minutely and sometimes carelessly. Abel was. an 
oily little brute, very efficient ; we hated him and he hated 
us with a bitter hatred — not without reason on both sides. 
I think he hated the French more than he did the English, 
but he hated Medlicott more than all the rest put together. 
About two months before I left Fort 9 a rumor went round, 
to the intense joy of every one, that Abel was under orders 
for the West Eront, and we all wished him luck, and he 
knew what we meant. Abel was just a bit too clever, and 
consequently got done in the eye sometimes; but I must 
own that he had a tremendous amout of work to 'do and 
did it very quickly and efficiently. His very capable 
assistant was the "Blue Boy," whose chief job was to lurk 
about the fort and try and catch us out He was always 
standing in dark corners and turning up unexpectedly. 
It was his job to tap the bars of our windows with a sledge 
hammer every three days, and he took an active part in 
the pursuit if any one escaped. 

He was not so clever as Abel, but he had more time for 



CAPTOES AND CAPTIVES 97 

spying and was more persistent. It always seemed to me 
to be worth keeping on fairly decent terms with these two. 
It was only necessary to refrain from being offensive to 
be on better terms than most people in the fort. 

It was very different with that swine of a Feldwebel. 
He never walked about without a revolver in his pocket, 
and he never came alone down any dark passage; "et il 
avait raison," as the French said, as he had several pretty 
narrow shaves with brickbats as it was. At one time 
those tins and jars, such as butter, jam, quaker-oats, which 
had been packed and sealed in a shop, were passed over 
to us unopened, and only home-made and home-packed 
articles were examined. Later on, however, everything 
had to be turned out on a plate and the Germans kept 
the tin. 

Although very nearly all our parcels arrived eventually, 
they used to come rather irregularly, and several times as 
many as twenty to thirty parcels would arrive for the six 
of us who were in one room. Consequently, if all the 
food had been opened immediately, much of it would have 
gone bad before we could eat it. To obviate this difficulty, 
the Germans made shelves in the parcel office, and each 
room or mess could leave there the food which it did not 
need for the moment. 

At first sight it would seem that this arrangement would 
make the smuggling through of forbidden goods almost 
impossible, or at any rate that our difficulties would be 
greatly increased. In reality the business was simplified. 
As long as we knew in which tin or small package the 
map, compass, or what-not was coming, we could make 



98 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

fairly certain, by methods which I shall describe later, of 
getting it without it ever being opened by the Germans. 

After Appell all the fort except the English had dinner. 
This was the hour when the potato, wood, oil, and coal 
stealing fatigues did their duty. Eor some weeks our 
French orderly used to steal potatoes for us as we needed 
them. He knew the ropes very well, as he had been in 
the fort for more than a year. One day, however, he said 
that this stealing in small quantities was a mistake, and 
that it would be safer to have one big steal once a month 
or so. Eour of us, under the leadership of Carpentier, 
stole eight small sacks without, much difficulty. It was 
just a matter of knowing the habits of our jailers and 
timing it accurately. The Germans were not so suspicious 
in those days as they became later. There was a small 
trap-door 6 feet up the wall in the central passage, which 
Carpentier knew how to open. He got in, filled the bags, 
and passed them out to us. To carry the full bags back 
to our rooms we had to pass under the eyes 01 a sentry. 
But that is just the best of a German sentry. He had had 
no orders to spot prisoners carrying bags, and he had also 
no imagination, so he took no notice. 

Between the hours of twelve and two we did our lessons. 
From two till four we played hockey or tennis. Tea was 
at four, when some Frenchmen usually came in to see us. 
Appell took place and the doors of the courtyards were shut 
about half an hour before sunset. After this Appell, till 
the evening Appell at nine o'clock, a sentry was left in our 
passage; but we could still communicate with the other 
wing. Bridge, reading, lessons, lectures, and preparation 



CAPTORS AND CAPTIVES 99 

for dinner took place during this period. The great 
amusement was lamp-stealing. During the winter the 
Germans allowed us, as we thought, a totally insufficient 
supply of oil, which only enabled us to burn our lamps for 
four hours out of the twenty-four, This meant going to 
bed at nine, which was of course ridiculous. The gloomy 
passages of the fort were mainly lit by oil lamps, and 
from these we used to steal the oil systematically. After 
a month or two the Germans realized that this was going 
on and reduced the number of lamps, and in the long 
passage where it was obviously impossible to stop us 
stealing oil they put acetylene lamps. Two lamps 1 to a 
passage 70 yards long was not a generous allowance. 

Between 5 and 9 p.m. the sentry in the passage had 
special orders, a loaded rifle, and a tixed bayonet, to see 
that these lamps were not stolen. As all the sentries had 
been stuffed up by the Feldwebel with horrible stories about 
the murderous and criminal characters of the prisoners, it 
is not surprising that each sentry showed the greatest 
keenness in preventing us from stealing the lamps and 
leaving him, an isolated Hun, in total darkness and at the 
mercy of the prisoners. As any man came out of his 
room and passed one of the lamps, which were on brackets 
about 7 feet from the ground, the sentry would eye him 
anxiously and hold himself in readiness to yell "Halt!" 
and charge up the passage. The lamps were about 30 
yards apart, and someone would come up, walk up to a 
lamp, and stop beneath it— the sentry would advance on 
him, and 1 when he was sufficiently attracted, the officer 
would take out his watch and look at it by the light of 



100 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

the lamp. Meanwhile a second officer would come quickly 
out of his room and take down the other lamp. As soon 
as the sentry perceived this he would immediately charge, 
with loud yells of "Halt! Halt!" hut as he turned hoth 
lamps would he blown out simultaneously, and the officers 
would disappear into their respective rooms, leaving the 
passage in total darkness. The amusing part was that 
this used to happen every night, and the sentries knew it 
was going to happen; hut against tactics of this sort, 
varied occasionally, of course, hut always ending with the 
lights being blown out simultaneously, they were quite 
powerless ! 

The evening, after the sentry had been withdrawn at 
9 p.m., was spent in the ordinary occupations of gambling, 
reading, tracing maps, making German uniforms and 
pork-pie caps, with occasional fancy-dress balls or im- 
promptu concerts. Sometimes mysterious lights would 
be seen in odd corners of the passage, where someone was 
industriously working at making a hole through the wall, 
removing the blocks of stone noiselessly one by one; and 
sometimes one would run up against a few men round a 
wonderful structure of tables and chairs in the middle 
of the passage, where someone was climbing up the sky- 
light to inspect the sentries on their beats on the top 
parapet, but usually all was peace and quiet till about 
11 p.m. At that hour the sentries were supposed to make 
us put out the lights in our rooms, but when they found 
that we paid little or no attention to repeated cries of 
"Licht ausmachen," and as there was no method, short 
of firing through the bars into a lighted bedroom, to make 



CAPTORS AND CAPTIVES 101 

us put them out, they eventually gave up these attempts, 
and, except for an occasional very offensive or con- 
scientious sentry, we put out our lamps or candles when 
we wished., 



102 



THE ESCAPING CLUB 




CHAPTER X 

ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 

WHEN" we had been a few days at the fort, and 
had had time for a good look round, Room 45 
formed themselves into an escaping club. That 
is to say, our ideas and discoveries would be common 
property. If possible, we would all escape together; but 
if the way out was only for two or three, the rest would 
help those selected to go to the best of their ability. It 
was universally agreed that Fort 9 was the toughest 
proposition that any of us had yet struck. The difficulty 
was not so much the material obstacles, but the suspicious 
nature of the Germans. 

Medlicott and Oliphant, as the most experienced prison- 
breakers, came to the conclusion that it was absolutely 
necessary to have more accurate knowledge of the numbers, 
positions, and movements of the sentries on the ramparts 
and round the moat at night than we already possessed. 
Eor this purpose it was decided that one of us must spend 
a night out. It was no job to be undertaken lightly. It 
meant a fifteen-hours' wait on a freezing night. For the 
first three and the last three hours of this time it would 
be almost impossible to move a muscle without discovery. 
And discovery meant a very excellent chance of being 

103 



104 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

stuck with a "bayonet. Besides this, there were two Appells 
to be "faked" — the Appell just before sunset and the 
early morning one. There was no Appell at 9 o'clock in 
those days. Our room's were separated from one another 
by 3-foot thick walls, but in these walls were archways 
leading from one room to the other. These archways 
were blocked up by boarding, and formed recesses in each 
room which were usually employed as hanging-cupboards 
for clothes, coats, etc. Under cover of these we cut a 
couple of planks out of the wooden barrier and made a 
hole so a man could slip through quickly from one room 
to the other. These planks could be put back quickly, 
and it would have needed a pretty close examination to 
have discovered where the board was cut, once pictures 
had been pasted over the cracks and coats had been hung 
up in front. There was some difficulty at first in obtaining 
the necessary tools for the work. The first plank we cut 
through with a heated table-knife, but for the second one 
we managed to steal a saw from the German carpenter 
who was doing some work in one of the rooms, and return 
it before he missed it. It must not be forgotten that there 
was absolutely no privacy in the fort, and that a sentry 
passed the window and probably stared into the room every 
minute or two. A special watch had to be kept for him, 
and you had to be prepared at any moment to look as if 
you were doing something quite innocent. Room 43 was 
inhabited by Frenchmen, but as usual in Fort 9 they were 
quite willing to help us. "We practiced the trick many 
times till every one was perfect in his part. The re- 
hearsals were most amusing. One of us pretended to be 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 105 

Abel doing Appell. First lie tapped at the door of 43 
and counted the men in the room, shut the door and walked 
about 7 paces to the next door, tapped and entered. 
Between the time Abel shut one door till the time he 
opened the next, six to eight seconds elapsed. During 
those seconds it was necessary for the Frenchman to slip 
through the hole, put on a British warm (we lived in 
coats in the cold weather), and pretend to be Oliphant. 
Abel knew every man by sight in every room; but, as 
long as he saw the requisite number of officers in each 
room, he did not often bother to examine their faces. 
After we had done it successfully, several other rooms 
adopted the method, and the "faking" was done a very 
large number of times before the Germans discovered it 
four months later. 

The early morning Appell was really easier. For 
several mornings the fellow in the bed nearest the hole 
made a habit of covering his face with the bed-clothes. 
Abel soon got used to seeing him like that, and, if he saw 
him breathing or moving, did not bother to pull the 
clothes off his face. The Frenchman had simply to run 
from his bed, bolt through the hole and into the bed in 
our room, cover up his face, and go through the motions 
of breathing and moving his legs sufficiently but without 
overdoing it All this had been practiced carefully before- 
hand. We had, of course, enormous fun over these 
preparations, stealing the saw and cutting the planks, 
pretending to be Abel doing Appell, and all the time dodg- 
ing the sentry at the window. This sort of amusement 



106 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

may seem childish, hut it was the only thing which made 
life tolerable at Fort 9. 

We cast lots as to which one of us was to sleep out. It 
fell to Oliphant. I own I breathed a sigh of relief, as I 
did not relish the job. The next thing to do was to hide 
him outside on the ramparts. The place was selected with 
great care, and was behind one of the traverses up on the 
ramparts on the south side, for our idea was for some or 
all of us to hide up there and swim the moat on the south 
side one dark night. Medlicott and Milne dug a grave for 
him, whilst Fairweather and I kept watch. Just before 
the Appell bell went we buried him and covered him with 
sods and grass. Of course he was very warmly clad, but he 
had a pretty beastly night in front of him, as it was freez- 
ing at the time. It was about 4.30 p.m. when he was 
covered up, and he would not get back to our room and 
comparative warmth till 8.15 next morning, when the doors 
were opened. The evening Appell went off splendidly, 
but the night was brighter than we had hoped, and we were 
rather anxious about him. 

There was some anxiety also about the morning Appell, 
as we could not be quite certain which way Abel would 
take the Appell, up or down the passage: that is to say, 
which room, 42 or 43, would he come to first ? It made all 
the difference to our arrangements. By careful listening 
we found out which way he was coming, and when he 
poked our substitute, who groaned and moved in the oft- 
rehearsed manner, we nearly killed ourselves with 
suppressed laughter. 

About an hour afterwards, just as we were going out to 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 107 

cover his retreat, Oliphant suddenly walked in, very cold 
and hungry but otherwise cheerful. He had had quite a 
successful night, and had gained pretty well all the in- 
formation we wished for. The bright moon had prevented 
him from crawling about very much, but he had seen 
enough for us to realize that it would be a pretty difficult 
job to get through the sentries and swim the moat even 
on a dark night. 

Although we temporarily abandoned this scheme, owing 
in the first place to the difficulties which we only realized 
after Oliphant's expedition, and secondly because "faking" 
Appell was a very chancy business for more than two 
people, we nevertheless made the most careful prepara- 
tions to escape at the first possible opportunity. Several 
schemes were broached. One of these schemes I always 
considered a good one. In the low and flat country in 
which the fort was situated very thick fogs used to come 
down quite suddenly. As soon as it became foggy all the 
prisoners had to come into the fort and the doors of the 
courtyards were shut. Our idea was either to wait out- 
side carefully hidden when the order was given to come 
in, or to have some method of getting into the courtyard 
in foggy weather; in either case we thought it would not 
have been a difficult business to cross the narrow moat on 
the north side during a fog in the day time. At night 
time there were sentries in the courtyards and on the 
ramparts, as well as three in front of our windows. In 
the day time there were none in the courtyards or on 
the ramparts, and only one in front of our windows. The 
difficulty was to get into the courtyards after we had been 



108 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

locked up. I climbed up a ventilator several times to 
see if it were not possible to cut our way out there, but 
the more one went into the details the more difficult it 
seemed. 

In the meantime we went on with our preparations: 
map-copying (which was Fairweather's department), 
rations and equipment (of which Medlicott and Oliphant 
were in charge), intelligence department as to movements 
of sentries and habits of Huns (which was my job). 
Boots, socks, grease, home-made rucksacks, concentrated 
food and the correct amount of meat and biscuits for a 
ten days' march, maps, compasses, the route to follow, 
and numerous other details were carefully prepared, and 
the material hidden. We thought that it was unlikely 
that a larger party than four would be able to go, and 
Medlicott, Oliphant, Fairweather, and myself were selected 
to be the first party to try if anything turned up. 

The next bit of excitement was the escape of Kicq and 
party. This happened when we had been in the fort about 
a month. Early on Kicq had left Room 45 and gone into 
a French room, 41. One afternoon he asked me if I would 
help him to escape, which I agreed to do. His idea was to 
dress up as a German N.O.O., and with six Frenchmen 
and a Belgian named Callens to bluff themselves out of the 
main gate at about 6.30 in the evening. The scheme 
seemed to me almost impossible — but Kicq was enthusias- 
tic about it, and persuaded me that it would probably come 
off, if only because it was so improbable that any one 
would attempt such a thing. There were three sentries 
and three gates and a guardhouse to pass, and the real 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 109 

danger was that, if they passed the first sentry and gate 
and were stopped in front of the second, they would be 
caught in the outer courtyard at the tender mercy of two 
angry sentries, and in my opinion would stand an excellent 
chance of being stuck with a bayonet. However, Kicq 
realized that as well as I did ; and, as it is for every man 
to judge the risks he cares to take, I promised to do my 
part, which was quite simple. 

About 6 p.m. I went into Room 41, and there they 
were all dressing up and painting their faces, etc., as if 
for private theatricals. Kicq was excellent as a German 
TTnteroffizier. He had made a very passable pork-pie cap, 
of which the badge in front is very easy to imitate by 
painted paper. He had a dark overcoat on to which 
bright buttons, which would pass in the dark as German 
buttons, had been sewn, and 1 he had a. worn-out pair of 
German boots which had been given to one of the orderlies 
by a German. Some of the others had on the typical red 
trousers — but any sort of nondescript costume will do for 
a French orderly. They were timed to go as soon after 
6.30 p.m. as the road was clear, and it was my job to 
give the signal. I was pleased to be able to report that 
I had never seen the sentry, who was on duty at the main 
gate, before, and it was most unlikely that he knew any 
of their faces. I stood about opposite the packet office, 
and Abel came along the passage and went in. Looking 
through the keyhole I saw that he was busy in there near 
the door and might come out at any moment. I reported 
this, and the whole party came and stood in the dark turn- 
ing of the passage by the bathroom, from where they 



110 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

could watch me peering through the packet office keyhole. 
At last I saw Abel sit down at his table and begin writing, 
so I gave the signal. Immediately a whole troop of 
French orderlies, carrying mattresses, blankets, and bed- 
ding on their heads, came clattering down the passage, 
laughing and talking to one another in French. A Ger- 
man 1ST. CO. was among them, and as he went along he 
collided with a German-speaking Russian, a great friend 
of ours known as Charley, who naturally cursed his eyes 
out in German. Kicq took no notice, but going just ahead 
of his orderlies he cursed the sentry at the main gate for 
not opening the door more quickly for them, and stood 
aside counting them as they went out. One fellow came 
running down the passage a bit after the others — Kicq 
waited for him and then went out after them, and the 
door closed. 

I waited most anxiously for any noise which would 
show that things had gone wrong. But after ten minutes 
it seemed certain that they had got clear away. 

After half an hour of subdued rejoicing in the fort, for 
by that time the story had gone round, we suddenly heard 
an awful commotion among the Huns. The guards were 
turning out at the double, clutching their rifles amid a 
regular pandemonium of shouts and orders, and the roar 
of the Commandant could be heard above the tumult. 
We turned out into the passages to see the fun. The CO. 
was raving like a maniac. The minute he caught sight of 
us laughing at him he brandished his fists and shouted at 
us to go to our rooms. Oliphant and I started to argue 
that the bell had not gone and therefore we need not go 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 111 

to our rooms, but he told off a sentry, who drove us back 
at the point of the bayonet, Oliphant protesting in his 
worst German, "Sie durfen nicht so sprechen mit ein 
English Offizier." 

We cheered like mad and sang the Marceillaise and 
"On les aura" — in fact, celebrated the occasion to the best 
of our ability. 

What happened as soon as the party got outside the 
first door, Kicq told me afterwards. The second obstacle 
they had to pass was the gate which barred the roadway 
over the moat. This the sentry opened for them without a 
word, whilst Kicq trod on his toes to distract his attention. 
As they passed the guardhouse in the outer court several 
men came out and shouted at them, but they were un- 
armed, and Kicq & Co. paid no attention. The outer gate 
consists of a double door which they knew would pull 
open without being unlocked, once the bar was removed. 
They got the bar off and tore open the gate, and found 
a sentry waiting for them with a rifle and fixed bayonet 
outside. "Wer kommt dann hier?" said he. Kicq was 
out first, and holding up his hand said, "Kuhig, einer ist 
los!" (Be quiet, a prisoner has got away), and rushed past 
him into the darkness. Without giving the sentry time to 
recover his wits, the rest pushed past, throwing their mat- 
tresses, etc., on the ground at his feet, and disappeared. 
Kicq and Decugis went on together for a bit, thinking that 
the rest must have been held up and expecting to hear 
shots. Then they saw other figures moving near them 
in the darkness and thought at first they were Germans 
searching, but found they were the rest of the party. It 



112 THE ESCAPING OLUB 

was not for some minutes afterwards that the alarm was 
given; but the whole party, after nearly running into a 
sentry on a neighboring fort, managed to get away from 
their pursuers. After a terribly hard eleven days' march 
they were all caught near the frontier. It was in the 
middle of winter, and they suffered most dreadfully from 
cold and bad feet. All of them, with the exception of 
Kicq and Callens, had gone out (according to English 
ideas of escaping) very badly prepared for such a journey 
at that time of year. They had quite insufficient food 
(though they had opportunities of carrying out any 
amount), insufficient socks, grease, and numerous other 
things. They also lost their way rather badly the first 
two nights. Then Kicq took charge, and the latter part 
of the journey they went by the same route which Buckley 
and I afterward* followed. None of them had thought 
of going into proper training, and to have reached the 
frontier under such conditions was a wonderful feat of 
endurance. They were in a terrible condition when they 
were caught. When within 70 kilometres of the frontier, 
just north of Stockach, they separated, the Frenchmen 
going on together and making a forced march of 60 kilo- 
metres in one night, and the Belgians coming on in their 
own time. Both parties were caught on the same day and 
about the same time; the Frenchmen because they got 
into a country close to the frontier where they could find 
no decent place to lie up, and, as there was a light fall of 
snow, their tracks were traced. The Belgians were caught 
in a very unlucky manner. Their hiding-place was ex- 
cellent, but on a Sunday the Germans usually go out 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 113 

shooting, and a shooting party came on them. A dog 
came up and sniffed at them, and then an old German 
with a gun stared into the bush and said, "Es ist ein 
Euchs" (It's a fox). 

They soon found it was not a fox, and Kicq and 
Callens were hauled out. The Wiirtemhergers treated 
them very well indeed, and said they were almost sorry 
they had captured them, as they had made such a sporting 
effort, or words to that effect. They were escorted back 
to the fort by a very decent Wiirtemberg officer, who was 
furious with the Commandant when he laughed and jeered 
at them for being recaptured. "Well," said Kicq in ex- 
cellent German to the Commandant, "if you leave all the 
gates open, how are prisoners to know that they are not 
allowed to go out that way?" The Wiirtemberg officer 
remarked, as he said good-bye to them outside, that "the 
Prussians were brutes, but the Bavarians were swine." 
Which remark seems to me very much to the point. All 
the party, with the exception of a very young Frenchman 
called La Croix, had painful and swollen feet, and all 
without exception were ravenously hungry for a week or 
more after they had been returned to prison. One of them 
retired to hospital for several weeks, and I believe that 
there was a danger at one time that he would lose his 
feet owing to frost-bite. However, they healed in time. 

As far as I remember they received no special punish- 
ment for this escape. They probably got five days' "jug," 
each, but, as I have explained before, this was a mere farce. 
Each of the three sentries whom they had passed got three 



114 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

months — and I don't imagine that was any farce at all 
for the unfortunate sentries. 

During the spell of fine weather which we had before 
the winter set in, Medlicott and Buckley joined forces and 
made an attempt to escape by a method which, in my 
opinion, was as unpleasant and risky as any which was 
attempted in Fort 9. With the help of the Commandant 
de Goys they persuaded some French orderlies to wheel 
them out concealed in the muck and rubbish boxes. We 
buried them one afternoon beneath potato peel and muck 
of every description, heaved the boxes on to a hand-cart, 
and then from the top of the ramparts watched four order- 
lies escorted by a sentry wheel them out to the rubbish- 
heap about 200 yards from the fort. In the boxes they 
were lying on sacking, so that when the box was upset the 
sacking would fall over them. We saw the first box upset 
apparently successfully, but as they were about to deal 
with the second, which contained Medlicott, there was a 
pause. The sentry unslung his rifle, and it was obvious 
to us that they had been discovered. Buckley's account 
of what happened was as follows: — 

"At about 4.45 Medlicott and I proceeded to where the 
boxes stood, and after some of the rubbish had been taken 
out we were thrust into its place by the willing hands of 
Evans, Milne, Fairweather, and Oliphant, and covered up 
again with rubbish. In due course the orderlies arrived, 
the boxes were loaded on to the cart, and the 'procession' 
started. All seemed to be going extremely well as far as I 
could judge from my uncomfortable position; the sentry 
was picked up at the guardhouse, and I heard with joy the 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 115 

gate of the fort being unlocked to let the party out. The 
orderlies stopped the cart at the rubbish-heap (or rather 
some hundred yards short of it, as we found out after- 
wards, our combined weight having made farther progress 
in the snow impossible), and started to unload the box in 
which I was concealed. As instructed, they unloaded us 
as far away from the sentry as possible. I felt my box 
taken off the cart and turned over. I lay still, and seemed 
to be well covered with rubbish and to be unnoticed. 
I heard Medlicott's box unloaded alongside of me, but 
just as this was being completed I felt some one tugging 
at the Burberry I was wearing, a corner of which was 
showing from under the rubbish. 

"It had been arranged previously that if either of us 
was discovered the one discovered first was to give him- 
self up at once and endeavor to conceal the presence of 
the other. I lay still for a few seconds, but as the tugging 
continued, I concluded the game was up and I stood up, 
literally covered in sackcloth and ashes. I must have 
looked a fairly awe-inspiring sight, and I evidently 
caused some alarm in the noble breast of a German civilian 
who had come to hunt the rubbish heap for scraps of food 
and clothing, and who evidently thought he had discovered 
a gold mine in the shape of a Burberry which he had been 
trying to pull off my back for the last few minutes. Any- 
way, he retired with some speed to a safe distance ! The 
sentry, who up to the time of my getting up had noticed 
nothing wrong, at this point began to perform rifle exer- 
cise in the close proximity of my person, and generally to 
behave in an excited and dangerous manner. Then fol- 



116 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

lowed for the next few minutes the unpleasant and, alas ! 
far too frequent experience of staring down the muzzle 
of a German rifle, held as it seemed with remarkable 
steadiness in spite of the excitement of the man behind it. 
The guard, whose attention had been attracted by the 
combined shouts of the civilian and the sentry, next ap- 
peared on the scene at the double. They were cold, hungry, 
and excited, to say the least of it. 

"Having failed to convince my sentry that I was alone 
and that there was nobody under the other heap of rubbish, 
I warned Medlicott of the guard's approach and advised 
him to get up. This he did, and was at once set upon 
by the oncoming Landsturm, who really looked as if they 
meant to do him in. After a considerable show of hate, 
in which I received a hefty clout over the knee with the 
butt of a rifle, we were marched back to the fort. A wild 
and disorderly scene followed between Medlicott, the Ger- 
man Commandant, and myself, of which I have a very 
vivid recollection. It ended by my being ejected by force 
from the Commandant's office, but not before both Medli- 
cott and I had either concealed our valuable maps and 
compasses or had passed them unobserved into the hands 
of the willing friends who had come to see the fun." 

Soon after the recapture of Kicq and party, the moat 
froze over, and though the Germans for several days were 
able to keep it broken by going round in a boat every day, 
they at last had to give it up. It was rather hard to get 
any conclusive proof as to whether the ice would bear or 
not, but one evening, after testing the ice with stones, we 
decided that if there was a frost that night we, that is 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 117 

to say, Oliphant, Medlicott, Milne, Fairweather, Wilkin, 
and myself, would run over the south rampart and across 
the ice just before the evening Appell. We made complete 
preparations, and every one had ten days' rations and 
everything else necessary for a march in winter to the 
frontier. 

However, it never came off, as at morning Appell next 
day the Commandant informed us that the doors into the 
inner courtyards would not he opened again until the moat 
thawed. This was rather a blow, because I felt sure that 
if we had only had the courage to try, the ice would have 
borne us the evening before. 

About this time, or perhaps rather earlier, there were 
one or two attempts to escape on the way to the dentist. 
Du Sellier and another Frenchman and Fairweather were 
all booked to go one afternoon to the dentist at Ingolstadt. 
They went under escort, and if they could delay matters 
so as to return in the darkness it would be the simplest 
thing in the world to get away. However, they made an 
awful mess of things, and though they came back in the 
dark, owing to good procrastination by Fairweather, only 
Du Sellier got away, and the other Frenchmen knocked 
up the sentry's rifle as he fired. This was a badly man- 
aged business, as all three men ought to have been able 
to escape from a single senrty in the dark. Du Sellier 
did not get very far, as the weather was very cold and 
he was insufficiently prepared. Being alone too was a 
great handicap. His feet got very bad and he had prac- 
tically to give himself up, or at any rate to take quite 
absurd risks after being three or four days out, and was 



118 THE ESCAPING- CLUB 

recaptured. The real risks were taken by Eairweather 
and the other Frenchman, and I don't quite know how 
they failed to get "done in" hy an ©nraged sentry. 

Another rather ingenious but still more unsuccessful 
attempt was made on the way to the dentist by Frenchmen. 
The idea was to go into one of those large round urinals 
which are fairly common in French and German towns. 
Inside they did a very rapid change, put on false beards, 
spectacles, etc., and walked out at the other end. Unfortu- 
nately the sentry recognized them. 

In what I have written and intend to write it must not 
be imagined that I am giving an exhaustive account of all 
that happened at Fort 9. I can give a fairly detailed 
account of the main incidents of my own prison career, 
but even this is not chronologically correct. Otherwise, 
I can only note a certain number of incidents and stories 
which will help to illustrate the sort of life we led in this 
prison. Most of these incidents have to do with escaping 
or attempting to escape. But it must not be imagined that 
this is the only thing we ever did or thought about. It 
was our work, so to speak. Just as at the front, whilst 
fighting is the main business^ soldiers nevertheless manage 
to amuse themselves pretty well behind the line in rest 
billets by sports, gambling, sing-songs, and dinners, so with 
us, whilst escaping was the main object in life, a large 
part of our time was taken up with lessons in languages, 
most vigorous games of hockey and tennis, poker and 
bridge, cooking and eating food, dancing and music, read- 
ing the German papers and discussing the war news (we 
were pretty good at reading between the lines), and attend- 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 119 

ing lectures which were given nearly every night on sub- 
jects varying from aviation to Victor Hugo. 

After a week or so of hard frost a thaw set in, the ice 
melted on the moat, and we were again let out into the 
courtyards. Hockey started once more, and we had some 
very good games. Some time before this Oliphant's 
sentence had come through, and he was sent off to Wesel 
for six months' imprisonment in a fortress ; as a punish- 
ment, I believe, for attempting to escape, and for things 
incidental to escaping, such as cutting wire and having 
maps and other forbidden articles in his possession. When 
it started to freeze again, I thought of the last time and 
determined not to miss another opportunity. One morn- 
ing after testing the ice by throwing stones from the top 
of the bank I determined to make the attempt that even- 
ing. The Appell bell went about 5 p.m., and about 5.30 
it became dark. My idea was to start as the Appell bell 
went, believing that they would not be able to catch us 
before the darkness came down. We had to run down a 
steep bank on to the ice, about 40 yards across the ice, 
and then 200 yards or so through one or two trees before 
we could put a cottage between ourselves and the sentries. 
There was certain to be some shooting, but we reckoned 
that the sentries' hands would be very cold, as at 5 p.m. 
they would have been at their posts for just two hours, 
and they were armed with old French rifles, which they 
handled very badily. 

Wilkin agreed to come with me, and Kicq, when he 
heard what was up, said he would like to come too. He 
had always a surprising faith in me. He had scarcely 



120 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

recovered from his last escape, but although he was not 
very fit, he was, or would have been, a great asset to the 
party, as he knew the way. This was especially valuable 
as our maps at that time were only copies of copies, and 
consequently not very accurate. The plan was to carry 
out rucksacks and other equiment nearly to the top of the 
south bank and hide behind one of the traverses just 
under the path. From there we should be hidden from 
the prying eyes of the sentry on the center "caponniere." 
The 5 p'.m. Appell bell was the signal for two parties, 
one headed by Major Gaskell and one by Captain Unett, 1 
to distract the attention of the two sentries by throwing 
stones on to the ice. We would then seize our opportunity 
and rush down the bank, and we hoped to be most of 
the way across the ice before the firing began. 

The question which really was causing us some anxiety 
was, "Would the ice bear?" I felt confident it would. 
Wilkin said he was beastily frightened, but he had made 
up his mind to come and he would go through with it. 
Kicq said that, if I thought it would bear, he was quite 
content, and I really believe that the matter did not worry 
him in the least. It would have been a very unpleasant 
business if the ice had broken, as, with the heavy clothes 
we had on, I doubt if we could have got out again. Still, 
any one who lets his mind dwell too much on what may 
happen will never escape from any prison in Germany. 

Our equipment was pretty complete. I had very thick 
underclothes, two sweaters, a thick leather flying coat and 

1 Captain Unett had been sent to Fort 9 as a punishment for 
escaping from Clausthal. 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 121 

a tunic, and socks over my Loots so as not to slip when 
running across the ice. The others were dressed much the 
same, except that Kicq had a cap which had been stolen 
bj Oliphant from the Commandant. He said it might 
come in useful in impersonating a German N.C.O. con- 
ducting two English prisoners. 

In our rucksacks we had ample rations for a ten days' 
march and enough solidified alcohol for at least one hot 
meal per diem. We managed to get our bags and coats 
up into the jumping-off place without being seen by the 
sentry and without much difficulty. I remember walking 
across the courtyard about 4.30 with Gilliland, picking up 
stones for him to throw at the ice. I think he was more 
nervous about it than we were: as is often the case, this 
sort of thing is more of a strain on the nerves for the 
onlookers than for those actually taking part. We were 
all in our places and in our kit, with our sacks on our 
backs, a few minutes before five. Whilst we were waiting 
for the bell to go, there were several prisoners walking up 
and down the path in front of us, along the top of the 
rampart. Of course they took absolutely no notice of us, 
except one Frenchman who spoke to us without looking 
round and assured us that the ice would not bear — a 
cheerful thing to say under the circumstances. "Mais oui, 
vous allez voir," we answered. 

It was a bad five minutes waiting there. Then the bell 
went, and almost immediately I heard laughter and shout- 
ing and the noise of stones falling on the ice. Then we 
jumped up and bolted over the path and down the slop©. 
I was slightly ahead of the other two, and when I got to 



122 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

the bottom of the steep bank I gave a little jump on to 
the ice, hoping it would break at the edge rather than in 
the middle if it were going to break at all. But it bore 
all right, and I shuffled across at a good speed. About 
half-way over I heard repeated and furious yells of 
"Halt!" followed soon afterwards by a fair amount of 
shooting, but I have no idea how many shots were fired. 
I was soon up the bank on the far side, through a few 
scattered trees, and over the frozen stream by a plank 
bridga Then I looked back. The others were only just 
clambering up the bank from the moat and were a good 
100 yards behind me. What had happened was this. I 
had made a small jump on to the ice, thus avoiding the 
rotten edge. The other two did not, but stepped carefully 
on to the edge, which broke under their weight and they 
fell flat on their faces. For the moment they were unable 
to extricate themselves. Wilkin says he got somehow up- 
side down and his heavy rucksack came over his head so 
that he was quite unable to move. Then Kicq got himself 
free and pulled out Wilkin. At first he thought of beat- 
ing a retreat up the bank again, believing naturally that 
the ice would not bear, but then he saw me three parts 
of the way across and heard the sentries shooting appar- 
ently at me, so he and Wilkin, keeping a bit separated so 
as not to offer too large a target, ran across after me. The 
sentry in the center, who had been well attracted by Gas- 
kell and the stone-throwing party, only caught sight of 
me when I was well on the ice, but then he started yelling 
"Halt !" and loading his rifle as fast as possible. He then 
ran to the edge of his "caponniere" and dropping on one 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 123 

knee fired and missed. Cold fingers, abuse, and perhaps a 
few stones too, which were hurled at him by the gang on 
the pathway just above his head, did not help to steady 
his aim. After one or two shots his rifle jammed. Yells 
and cheers from the spectators. He tore at the bolt, 
cursing and swearing, and then put up his rifle at the 
crowd of jeering prisoners above him. But they could 
see that the bolt had not gone home and only yelled the 
more. The other sentry had started firing by this time, 
but he was out of sight of the prisoners in the fort, and 
Unett and Milne, who had been distracting his attention 
(Unett said the sentry nearly shot him once), ran off to 
prove an alibi. I don't know how many shots were fired 
altogether. Not a large number, as owing to the appear- 
ance of some civilians they stopped firing when once Kicq 
and Wilkin had got well on to the far bank of the moat. 
When I was half-way across the space between the moat 
and the cottage, I saw on the main road on my left a large 
four-horse wagon with a knot of gesticulating men in 
civilian clothes. We learnt afterwards that they were 
carters from a munition factory in the neighborhood, and 
were fairly strong and healthy fellows. They were only 
about 150 yards away, and started after us led by a fellow 
with a cart-whip. The going was very heavy, as there 
were two or three inches of snow and heavy plough under- 
neath, so we made slow progress, as we were carrying a 
lot of weight in clothes and food. They quickly overtook 
me, and the fellow who was leading slashed me across the 
shoulders with his whip. I turned and rushed at him, 
but he ran out of my reach. The rest of them then came 



124 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

round and I began to see that the game was up, especially 
as at that moment I saw some armed soldiers coming on 
bicycles along the road from the fort. 

The next thing to do was to avoid being shot on recap- 
ture. I stood still, whilst they all snarled round me, 
and beckoning the smallest man said to him in German, 
"Come here and I will give myself up to you." The fellow 
with the whip immediately came forward. "Not to you, 
you Schweinhund," I said ; "you hit me with that whip." 
The little fellow was quite pleased, as I think there is 100 
marks reward for the recapture of an officer, and caught 
hold of my coat tails, and we started off towards the fort. 
Wilkin had given himself up to two or three others by 
this time, but I saw that Kicq was trying to sneak off with- 
out being noticed while the mob was occupied with us. 
However, a few seconds later they saw him. Two or 
three gave chase, and he was brought in soon after us. 
[We had not gone more than a few steps towards the fort 
when I saw the Feldwebel running across the snow towards 
us. He came up in a furious rage, cursing us and brand- 
ishing a revolver. We waved him aside and told him not 
to make such a fuss, as it was all over now, and he soon 
calmed down. Some soldiers then came up and marched 
us in, the Frenchmen cheering us as we came through the 
gate. Before we came to the fort we had to cross a bridge 
over the stream; and, as we walked along, I tore up my 
map and dropped it into the stream. I forgot to say that 
Kicq, when he went off by himself just before being taken, 
had managed to get rid of the Commandant's hat by stuf- 
fing it down a hole. As Kicq crossed the bridge he took 



ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 125 

out his map to throw it into the water, "but was seen by his 
guard, a horrid little fellow who used to help with the 
clerical work in the bureau. Kicq dropped the map, and 
a scuffle ensued. Kicq got much the best of this and kicked 
the map into the stream. 

There was quite an amusing scene in the bureau. We 
all of us had to take off most of our clothes and be searched. 
I had nothing I could hide, but both Kicq and Wilkin had 
compasses, which they smuggled through with great skill. 
Kicq had his hidden in the lining of his greatcoat, and 
Wilkin kept his in his handkerchief, which he pulled out 
of his pocket and waved to show there was nothing in it, 
at the same time holding the compass, and then put it 
back into his pocket. All our foodstuffs and clothes were 
returned to us, with the exception of my black flying-coat. 
I complained about this, and appealed to a German gen- 
eral who come round to inspect the fort a few days later, 
and it was returned to me, but was eventually confiscated 
when I tried to escape in it a week or two later. We had 
several tins of solidified alcohol with us for smokeless 
cooking purposes. These were taken, though we protested. 
For all the things taken off us we were given receipts by 
the Germans and told, rather ironically, that we could have 
them back at the end of the war. 

Just as we were going out I saw my tin of solidified 
alcohol, which was valuable stuff (we used to manufacture 
it in the fort from paraffin and soap), standing almost 
within my reach, and very nearly managed to pocket it 
as I went out. However, I found Decugis outside, and 
explained to him the position of the tin, and suggested 



126 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

that lie should take in one or two pals, have a row in there, 
and steal it back for me. This is the sort of expedition 
that the Frenchmen loved and were absolute masters at. 
Within ten minutes I had my solid alcohol back all right 
and kept my receipt for it as well. 



CHAPTER XI 

AN ESCAPE WITH MEDLICOTT 

FOE the next six weeks life was rather hard. It 
froze continuously, even in the day time, in spite 
of the sun, which showed itself frequently, and at 
night the thermometer registered as often as not more than 
27° of frost. The Germans, who had made many efforts 
to keep the ice in the moat broken by punting round in a 
steel boat kept for the purpose, now abandoned the attempt, 
and in consequence of this and of our escape across the 
ice we were denied the use of the inner courtyards. For 
the next six weeks the only place in which we could take 
exercise was the little outer court where Appell was some- 
times held. It was only about 50 yards by 25, and was 
really an inadequate exercise ground for 150 active men. 
Still we kept pretty fit. Every morning all the English 
had an ice-cold shower-bath. Of the Frenchmen, Bellison, 
who lived in Gaskell's room, and one other, I think, had 
been used to take a cold bath every morning, but it was 
really astonishing what a number followed our example 
at Fort 9. When it was so cold that the water in the tubs 
above the shower-sprays was frozen solid, thirty or forty 
officers, by pumping the water from the well, used to take 
a bath regularly every morning. It was only when coal 

127 



128 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

became so scarce that it was not possible to keep a fire 
going all day in the living-rooms, and when, if yon took 
a bath cold yon would never get warm again the whole 
day, that attendance dropped to some half-dozen men who, 
having before them the possibility of a ten days' march 
to the frontier in the dead of winter, looked upon the bath 
in the morning more as a method of making themselves 
hard and fit than as an act of cleanliness. 

Every day a good many of us took exercise by running 
round and round the small court, to the astonishment of 
the sentries. Mutter's exercises were introduced, and 
Medlicott and Gaskell, Buckley and I, and many other 
Englishmen and Frenchmen, did them regularly every day 
for the rest of the time we were in Germany. As a result 
of this strenuous life, though we were often very cold 
and very hungry, we were, with few exceptions easily 
traceable to bad tinned food, never sick or sorry for our- 
selves the whole time. 

Unett, poor fellow, suffered severely from boils, and 
Buckley from the same complaint during his two months' 
solitary confinement. From this onwards, for all the 
winter months, the coal and light shortage became very 
serious. We stole wood, coal, and oil freely from the Ger- 
mans, and before the end nearly all the woodwork in the 
fort had been torn down and burnt, in spite of the strict 
orders to the sentries to shoot at sight any one seen taking 
wood. So long as the Germans continued to use oil lamps 
in the many dark passages of the fort, it was not very 
difficult to keep a decent store of oil in hand, but after a 



AN ESCAPE WITH MEDLICOTT 129 

month or so the Germans realized they were being robbed, 
and substituted acetylene for oil. 

We all wrote home for packets of candles, and consider- 
ing the amount of oil we were officially allowed, the length 
of time we managed to keep our lamps burning remained 
to the end a source of astonishment to the Germans. 

As it was Christmas time, and as Eoom 45 was well 
supplied with food, we decided to give a dinner to the 
Allies on Christmas night. A rumor had been passed 
round, with the intention, I have no doubt, that it should 
come to the ears of the Germans, that a number of prison- 
ers intended to escape on Christmas night. The Germans 
were consequently in a state of nervous tension, the guards 
were doubled, and N.C.O.'s made frequent rounds. No 
one had any intention of escaping on that night as far 
as I know. 

A piano which had been hired by a Frenchman was 
kept in the music-room, a bare underground cell of a place 
at the far end of the central passage, and we applied to 
be allowed to bring this into our room. To our huge 
indignation this was refused, on the grounds that we 
might use it as a method of attracting the sentries' 
attention. 

However, we were determined to have the piano and a 
dance on Christmas night, so a party was organized to 
bring it from the music-room in spite of the German 
orders. I don't know exactly how it was managed, but I 
think a row of some sort was begun in the other wing of 
the fort and, when the German ISF.C.O.'s had been attracted 
in that direction, the piano was "rushed" along to the 



130 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

"ballroom." The dinner was an undoubted success. 
Room 45, with Medlicott as chef, spent the whole day 
cooking, and that evening about twenty of us sat down to 
dinner — the guests being all of them Frenchmen or Rus- 
sians. After dinner we all attended a fancy-dress dance 
which some Frenchmen gave in the adjoining room. They 
had knocked down a wooden partition between two rooms, 
and had a dance in one and the piano and a drinking bar 
in the other. The French are a most ingenious nation, 
and the costumes were simply amazing. 

There were double sentries all round the fort that night, 
and some of them stood outside the windows and enjoyed 
the dancing and singing. It was an extremely cold night 
outside, and I am not surprised that some of them felt 
rather bitter against us. I offered one a bit of cake, but 
he merely had a jab at me through the bars with his 
bayonet. 

About midnight we sang "God Save the King," the 
"Marseillaise," and "On les aura," with several encores. 
This turned out the guard, and a dozen of them with 
fixed bayonets, headed by the Feldwebel, crashed up the 
passage and, after a most amusing scene in which both 
sides kept their tempers, recaptured the piano. 

A few days after this, Medlicott and I learnt that four 
Frenchmen were cutting a bar in the latrine with the 
object of escaping across the frozen moat. We offered 
them our assistance in exchange for the right of follow- 
ing them at half an hour's interval if they got away 
without being detected. They agreed to this, as they 
needed some extra help in guarding the passage and giving 



AN ESCAPE WITH MEDLICOTT 131 

warning of the approach of the sentry whilst the bar was 
being cut. At the farthest end of his beat the sentry was 
never more than 40 yards away from the window where 
the operation was being carried out. Under these circum- 
stances a very high degree of skill was necessary for the 
successful cutting of an inch-thick bar. Here Moretti 
was in his element. No handle to the saw was used; 
he held the saw in gloved hands to deaden the noise, and 
in four hours made two cuts through the bar. 

Eepeated halts had to be made, as the sentry passed 
the window every three or four minutes, and, as he was 
liable to examine the bars at any time, they sealed up 
the crack between each spell of work with some flour paste 
colored with ashes for the purpose. This made the cut 
on the bars invisible. I examined the bars carefully my- 
self after they had been cut, and was quite unable to tell 
which one was only held in place by a thread of metal at 
each end. 

The removal of one bar would leave only a narrow 
exit through which a man could squeeze and, thinking that 
this might delay them, the Frenchmen, rather unwisely I 
consider, decided to cut a second bar. 

Now whether they were really betrayed, as we believe, 
by one of the French orderlies who for some time had 
been under suspicion as a spy, or whether some one on the 
far bank of the canal had happened to see or hear them, 
we never knew, but it is certain that the Germans learnt, 
without getting exact details, that one of the bars in the 
latrines was being cut. The "Blue Boy" visited the 
latrines four times in a couple of hours and examined 



132 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

the bars with, care, but without finding anything wrong. 
At last the Commandant and the Feldwebel walked up 
outside our windows, and the latter taking each bar in 
turn shook it violently. About the fourth one he shook 
came off in his hands and he fell down flat on his back. 

The Germans brought up barbed wire and wound it 
round and round the bars and across the hole. Besides 
this, they put an extra sentry to watch the place. It seemed 
at first hopeless to think of escaping that way. The French- 
men gave it up, but I kept an eye on it for a week or so, 
and as a precaution obtained leave from the Frenchmen 
to use it if I saw an opportunity. 

One very cold night about a week later I was standing 
in the latrines and watching the sentry stamping backwards 
and forwards on his 20-yard beat, when it seemed to me 
just possible that the thing might be done. I fetched 
Medlicott and Wilkin, who had some wire-cutters. Medli- 
cott took the cutters and, choosing a favorable moment, 
cut the tightest strand of wire. It seemed to us to make 
a very loud "ping," but the sentry took no notice, so 
Medlicott cut eight more strands rapidly. 

Leaving Wilkin to guard the hole Medlicott and I rushed 
off to change in the dark, because if we lighted a lamp any 
sentry passing our window could see straight into the room. 
tt was half an hour after midnight when we started to 
change, but by 1.15 a.m. we were ready — our rucksacks, 
maps, compasses, and all were lying packed and hidden. 
Over our warm clothes we wore white underclothes, as 
there were several inches of snow on the ground outside; 
and over our boots we had socks, as much to deaden the 



AN ESCAPE WITH MEDLICOTT 133 

noise as to prevent our slipping as we crossed the frozen 
moat. 

Outside, the reflection from the snow made the night 
seem bright, but there was a slight haze which prevented 
white objects such as ourselves being seen at a greater dis- 
tance than about 100 yards. 

In the latrines it was as dark as pitch, so that, though 
we stood within a few yards of the sentry, we could watch 
him in safety. It was only safe to work when the sentry 
was at the far end of his beat; that is to say, about 15 
yards away. Medlicott cut the wire, whilst Wilkin and 
I watched and gave him signs when the sentry was ap- 
proaching. Owing to repeated halts, it was a long job. 
The sentries glanced from time to time at the wire, but 
all the cuts were on the inside of the bars and invisible 
to them. Removing the bits of wire when they had all 
been cut was like a complicated game of spillikins, and it 
was not till nearly 4.30 a.m. that Medlicatt had finished. 
It was a long and rather nerve-racking business waiting 
in the cold to make a dash across the moat. 

Medlicott and I tossed up as to who should go first, and 
he won. It was not easy to choose the right moment, for 
almost our only hope of getting across without a shot was 
when the two sentries were at their beats farthest from us, 
and one of these sentries was invisible to us, though we 
could hear him stamping to keep warm as he turned at 
the near end of his beat. 

At last a favorable moment came and Medlicott put 
his head and shoulders through the hole, but stuck half- 
way. He had too many clothes on. We were only just in 



134 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

time to pull him out of sight as the sentry turned. He 
took off some clothes and put them in his sack and tried 
again, though we had to wait some time for an opportunity. 
Again he found he was too fat — and what was worse got 
hung up on a piece of barbed wire. We made what seemed 
to us a fearful noise hauling him in and disentangling him, 
but the sentry took no notice. Then Wilkin rushed off 
and got a second sack, into which Medlicott packed several 
layers of clothes. Another long wait for a suitable mo- 
ment. We heard the sentry on our left come to the end of 
the beat, then it sounded as if he had turned and his steps 
died away. The man on our right was at the far end 
of his beat. Now was the moment. With a push and a 
struggle Medlicott was through the hole. I went after him 
instantly, but stuck. A kick from Wilkin sent me sprawl- 
ing on to the snow on the far side. In a few seconds we 
were crossing the moat, I a couple of yards behind Medli- 
cott, as fast as our heavy kit and the snow would let us. 
We were almost across when "Halt! Halt!! Halt!!" 
came from the sentry on our left. He had never gone 
back after all, but had only stamped his feet and then 
stood still. On the far side of the moat was a steepish 
bank lined with small trees; we tore up this and hurled 
ourselves over the far bank just as the first shot rang out. 
We were safe for the moment — no sentry could see us, 
but shot after shot was fired. Each sentry in the neighbor- 
hood safeguarded himself against punishment by letting 
off his rifle several times. Milne, who knew we were 
escaping and was lying in bed listening, told me after- 
wards that he had felt certain that one of us had been hit 



AN ESCAPE WITH MEDLICOTT 135 

and that they were finishing him off. Eor several hun- 
dred yards we went northwards across the fields, only 
halting a moment to pull off the socks from our boots. 
Then we turned left-handed, intending to make a big cir- 
cuit towards the south so as to avoid passing too close to 
the battery which flanks the fort. 

When we had gone about 400 yards we saw behind us 
lights from several moving lanterns and realized that some 
one was following on our tracks. It was very necessary 
to throw off our pursuers as soon as possible, because there 
was little more than a couple of hours before the daylight, 
so we changed our plan and made towards a large wood 
which we knew was about a mile and a half northwest 
of the fort. 

Just before entering the wood we saw that the lights 
behind us were still about 300 yards away, but now there 
seemed to be ten or a dozen lights as well, in a large 
semicircle to the south of us. 

The wood proved useless for our purpose. There was 
scarcely any undergrowth, and it was just as easy to follow 
our tracks there as in the open field. There was only 
one thing to be done. We must double back through the 
lights and gain a village to the south of us. Once on the 
hard road we might throw them off. Choosing the largest 
gap in the encircling band of lanterns we walked through 
crouching low, and unseen owing to our white clothes. 
Once in the village we felt more hopeful. At any rate 
they could no longer trace our footsteps, and we believed 
that all our pursuers were behind us. Choosing at random 
one of three or four roads which led out of the village in 



136 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

a more or less southerly direction, we marched on at top 
speed. After walking for a quarter of an hour, we were 
about to pass a house and a clump of trees at the side 
of the road when we heard a noise from that direction, 
and suspecting an ambush we instantly struck off across 
the fields, putting the house between ourselves and the 
possible enemy. Then we heard footsteps running in the 
snow, and then a cry of "Halt ! Halt !" from about 15 
yards behind us. The position was hopeless; there was 
no cover, and our pursuer could certainly run as fast as 
we could in our heavy clothes. 

"It's no good," said Medlicott; "call out to him." 

I quite agreed and shouted. 

"Come here, then," the man answered. 

"All right, we are coming, so don't shoot." 

When we got close we saw it was the little N.C.O. who 
looked after the canteen. His relations with the prisoners 
had always been comparatively friendly. He was quite a 
decent fellow, and I think we owe our lives to the fact 
that it was this man who caught us. 

He only had a small automatic pistol, and, as we came 
back on to the road, he said, "Mind now, no nonsense! 
I am only a moderate shot with this, so I shall have to 
shoot quick." I said we had surrendered and would do 
nothing silly. He walked behind us back to the village, 
on the outskirts of which we met the pursuing party, con- 
sisting of the "Blue Boy" with a rifle and a sentry with a 
lantern. 

The lantern was held up to our faces. "Ha ha," said 
the "Blue Boy," "Herr Medlicott and Hauptmann Evans, 



AN ESCAPE WITH MEDLICOTT 137 

noch mal." Then we walked back to the fort under escort, 
about a 4 mile marcb. As we entered the outer door of 
tbe fort tbe sentry at tbe entrance cursed us and threatened 
me violently witb a bayonet, but our N.C.O. stopped bim 
just in time. 

In the main building just outside tbe bureau we bad a 
very hostile reception from a mob of angry sentries through 
whom we had to pass. For a few moments things looked 
very ugly. I was* all for conciliation and a whole skin if 
possible, but it was all I could do to calm Medlicott, who 
under circumstances of this sort only became more pug- 
nacious and glared round him like a savage animal. Then 
the Feldwebel appeared and addressed the soldiers, cursing 
them roundly for bringing us in alive instead of dead. 
I have treasured up that speech in my memory, and, if 
ever I meet Feldwebel Buhl again, I shall remind him of 
it. He is the only German against whom, from personal 
experience, I have feelings* which can be called really 
bitter. The Feldwebel wished to search us, but we refused 
to be searched unless an officer was present ; so we waited 
in the bureau for an hour and a half till the Commandant 
arrived. This time they took my flying-coat away and 
refused to give it back. They also found on me the same 
tin of solidified alcohol which had been taken off me before 
and restolen by the Frenchmen. They recognized it, but 
of course could not prove it was the same. "I know how 
you stole this back," said the senior clerk as he searched 
me. "You shall not have it again." He was a Saxon, 
and the only German with a sense of humor in the fort. 
iWe both laughed over the incident. I laughed last, how- 



138 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

ever, as I got the tin back in about a week's time, as I 
will tell later. 

The search being over, we were allowed to go back 
into our rooms, and had breakfast in bed. - 

Perhaps it may seem rather extraordinary that we were 
not punished severely for these attempts to escape, but the 
explanation lies not in the leniency of the German but in 
the fact that there were no convenient cells in which to 
punish us. The cells at Fort 9 were all of them always 
full, and there was a very long waiting list besides. They 
might have court-martialled us and sent us to a fortress, 
but our crime, a "simple escape," was a small one. They 
might have sent us to another camp; but the Germans 
knew that we would ask nothing better, as no officers' camp 
was likely to be more uncomfortable or more difficult to 
escape from. Any way, it would be a change. Sometimes, 
when there was a vacancy, they sent us to the town jail, 
but, as had been demonstrated more than once, it was 
easier to escape from there than from Fort 9. The Ger- 
mans' main object being to keep us safe, they just put us 
back into the fort and awarded us a few days' Bestrafung, 
which we did in a few months' time when there was a 
cell vacant. 



CHAPTER XII 

SHORT RATIONS AND MANY RIOTS 

THE weather became colder and colder, and for the 
next month we seldom had less than 27° of frost 
at night, and in the day time anything up to 20° 
in spite of the fairly frequent appearance of the sun. The 
countryside was covered by a few inches of snow, now 
in the crisp and powdery condition seldom seen except in 
Switzerland and the colder countries. After the experience 
of Medlicott and myself it was generally agreed in the fort 
that escape was almost impossible, unless* a very consider- 
able start could be obtained; so the greater number of us 
settled down to face the not altogether pleasant domestic 
problems of Fort 9. 

Our allowance of coal was found to be quite insufficient 
to keep the room tolerably warm. It was the same in every 
room in the fort. Repeated requests for an increased 
allowance having as usual had no effect, we proceeded to 
tear down all the available woodwork in the fort and in 
our rooms and burn it in the stoves. We lived literally 
in a solid block of ice. Just before the long frost had set 
in, the ground above and round our rooms had been soak- 
ing wet, and the walls and floors had been streaming with 
moisture. Then came the frost, and everything was 

139 



140 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

frozen solid, and outside in the passage an icy blast blew 
continually, and in places beneath broken ventilators a 
few inches of frozen snow lay for weeks unthawed inside 
the fort. That passage was, without exception, the coldest 
place I have ever known. 

Down the walls of each of our rooms ran a flue in the 
stonework, intended to drain the earth above the rooms. 
For over six weeks there was a solid block of ice in it from 
top to bottom, in spite of the fact that the flue was in the 
common wall of two living-rooms. 

We lived continually in our great coats and all the warm 
underclothes we possessed; we ourselves seldom, and our 
allies never, opened windows, and we pasted up cracks and 
holes; but still we remained cold, and crouched all day 
round our miserable stoves. Miiller's exercises, skipping, 
and wood, coal, and oil stealing were recreations and means 
of keeping warm and keeping up our spirits. On top of 
this came the famine. For the last few months we had 
been so well and regularly supplied with food from home 
that we had never thought of eating the very unpalatable 
food given us by the Germans, and had at length come 
to an agreement whereby they gave us full pay — in my 
case 100 marks per month — and no longer supplied us 
with food. Up to the time of this agreement they had 
deducted 42 marks monthly, and this extra money was 
quite useful. Some time before Christmas we were 
warned that there would be a ten days' stoppage of our 
parcels in order to allow of the more rapid delivery of the 
German Christmas mail to their troops. In consequence 
we had all written home asking that double parcels should 



SHORT RATIONS AND MANY KIOTS 141 

be sent us for the two weeks preceding Christmas. How . 
ever, Christmas passed and parcels came with almost the 
same regularity as they had always done. Christmas 
festivities, and the knowledge that double parcels were on 
their way, induced us to draw rather heavily on our 
reserve store. Then came the stoppage. Daily we looked 
anxiously for the parcel cart which never came. Reduced 
to our last half-dozen tins of food among six men we went 
onto quarter rations, helped out from a large supply of 
stolen potatoes. At length we had nothing whatever to eat 
but our daily ration of bread and almost unlimited potatoes. 
No butter, no salt, no pepper. It would not have mattered 
very much in warm weather, but in those conditions of 
cold and discomfort in which we were living, hunger was 
rather hard to bear. 

A diet consisting entirely of butterless and saltless 
potatoes in various forms became after three or four days 
extremely tedious. It is quite impossible to eat enough 
of them to satisfy one's hunger. After a gorge of potatoes 
one is distended but still hungry. I forget how long the 
famine lasted — about ten days, I think, though I remem- 
ber very well the arrival of a cartload of parcels which 
relieved the situation just when things began to get serious. 
It arrived on a Saturday, and the Germans said that they 
would be given out on Monday, as a certain time was 
necessary for sorting and registering the parcels. To 
starving men this delay was quite intolerable, and the 
prisoners adopted such a threatening attitude that the 
Commandant considered it wisest to give out a small 
portion of the parcels to keep us going till Monday. 



142 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

Of course we might have asked the Germans to supply 
us with food when we were short, hut I don't think such a 
course was contemplated seriously hy anybody. 

Perhaps it may he considered that the kindly Germans, 
knowing that their prisoners were nearing starvation, 
should have insisted on supplying us with food. But the 
Germans of Port 9 were not accustomed to confer favors 
on us — if they had offered them we should have refused — 
and I have no doubt that they considered a little hunger 
very good for us<. 

So much for the famine ; our parcels for the rest of the 
time I was in Germany arrived in large quantities. 

About this time, on the strength of the convention 
agreed to between the English and the German govern- 
ments, we obtained from the very unwilling Germans the 
privilege of going on walks for an hour or two a week 
on parole. 

Por the rest of the time I was at Fort 9 the parties of 
English and Russian prisoners, but not Prench, as I 
believe they had no such convention with the Germans, 
exercised this privilege once and sometimes twice a week, 
accompanied by an unarmed German N.C.O., who under 
these circumstances sometimes became quite human. 

The walks were very dull indeed, as the country round 
the fort is very uninteresting. However, it was certainly 
a relief to get out of the place every now and then. The 
only other way in which we ever got out of the fort 
legitimately was when we were sent for from Ingolstadt 
for preliminary inquiries concerning a court-martial, or 
to make a statement concerning the vigilance of the sentry 



SHORT RATIONS AND MANY RIOTS 143 

past whom we had escaped. We always did our best to 
defend the unfortunate sentries, but I am afraid that they 
almost invariably were heavily punished. 

The next incident of any interest was a turbulent affair 
which has become known to the one-time inmates of Fort 9 
as the Bojah case. As I was not involved to any great 
extent in this storm in a teacup, I have rather a con- 
fused idea of what happened and why it happened. 

I am not even sure how it started, but I believe the 
original cause was a very mild and commonplace theft by 
Medlicott. A German carpenter was putting up some 
shelves in one of our living-rooms when Medlicott and 
I entered the room. Quite on the spur of the moment 
Medlicott picked up the carpenter's pincers when his 
back was turned and handed them to me. I put them in 
my pocket and walked out of the room and hid them. 
Before the pincers were missed Medlicott also followed me 
out of the room. No one else in the room had noticed the 
theft, and naturally denied it indignantly when accused 
by the carpenter. Apparently the carpenter, being very 
angry, instantly informed the Commandant. About ten 
minutes later we heard a fearful row in the passage out- 
side, and we all came out of our rooms to see the fun. 
In the doorway of one of the rooms was a seething, shout- 
ing mob consisting of several sentries with fixed bayonets, 
the Feldwebel and half a dozen prisoners, mostly French, 
and the Commandant. They were all shouting at the 
top of their voices and pushing, and the Commandant was 
brandishing his arms and generally behaving like an 
enraged maniac. What the Frenchmen were doing in 



144 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

that room I am not quite clear, but I believe they had 
come into the room in which the carpenter had been after 
the latter had departed to report the loss of the pincers 
to the Commandant. When the Commandant arrived with 
his guard he insulted them and accused them of stealing 
the pincers and then ordered them back to their rooms. 
The Frenchmen — Kicq, Derobiere, Bojah, and a few others 
of the younger and more violent sort — were the last people 
in the world to take this sort of thing lying down ; besides 
which they loved a row at any time for its own sake, and 
for once in a way they had right on their side. They 
denied the accusation and protested against the insults 
with some violence, and when ordered to their rooms by 
the Commandant refused to go unless they first had an 
apology. It is quite impossible to imagine the scene unless 
you realize the character of the Commandant. The one 
outstanding feature was his conspicuous lack of dignity 
and total inability to keep his temper. In his quiet 
moments he was an incompetent, funny bourgeois shop- 
keeper ; when angry, as at this moment, he was a howling, 
raving madman. When the Frenchmen refused to move, 
the Commandant apparently ordered the Feldwebel to 
arrest them, and confused shouting followed, in the midst 
of which the Commandant hit the Feldwebel and, I 
believe, though I did not see it, also hit Bojah. There was 
a complete block in the doorway, and the passage was also 
blocked by a hand-cart, which happened to be there, and 
a large and cheering crowd of spectators. The sentries 
could not get in, and the Feldwebel and the Commandant, 
who were blocked in the doorway, could not move, and 



SHORT RATIONS AND MANY RIOTS 145 

every one continued to shout, Medlicott, who loved this 
sort of thing, tried to Large into the scrimmage, and I only 
just prevented him being struck by a bayonet. Then Kicq 
managed to get close to the Commandant and call him a 
"cochon." Two sentries effected his arrest. After that, 
I really don't know how things got disentangled without 
bloodshed, but eventually the Germans retreated amidst 
yells of derision, with Bojah, Kicq, and Derobiere in 
their midst. 

The English and French prisoners who had seen this 
affair decided that, as the Commandant's conduct had been 
unbecoming that of an officer, we would hold no further 
communication with him. Most of us were content to 
act up to this passively, but when Batty-Smith was sum- 
moned to the office he informed the Commandant of the 
decision and walked out. Buckley and Medlicott also took 
the earliest opportunity of doing the same thing. 

As soon as they entered the office, Buckley delivered the 
following ultimatum. "Nous n'avons rien a faire avec 
vous parceque nous ne pouvons pas vous considerer comme 
un officier." They then right-about turned and marched 
out in military fashion, leaving the Commandant, as he 
himself said in his evidence at the trial, "sprachlos" with 
astonishment. Buckley's reason for speaking in French 
instead of German was that he did not wish him to be able 
to call any of the office staff as witness of what he had 
said. Soon afterwards Batty-Smith was called again to 
the bureau, arrested, and sent to prison in another fort, 
where he remained in solitary confinement for over two 
months without any sort of trial. Buckley and Medlicott 



146 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

were kidnapped in exactly the same way and thrown into 
improvised cells in the fort. Medlicott had only been 
in his cell for ten seconds, when he began, as usual, to 
think how to get out of it. Above the door was a glass 
window by which light entered the cell. The glass was 
already partially broken, so Medlicott standing on a chair 
smashed the rest of it and somehow managed to climb out 
through it. Soon afterwards Buckley also got out, and 
both returned to their rooms. Five minutes later the 
Germans placed sentries in front of the cell doors, but it 
was not till several hours afterwards that they found to 
their intense surprise that the birds had already flown. 

We got a good deal of amusement out of this incident ; 
but a few days later Medlicott was sent to another fort and 
Buckley was shut up in Fort 9. Both remained in close 
solitary confinement without any sort of trial for over two 
months. 

We never saw either Derobiere or Kicq again, though 
I have heard from the latter since the armistice was 
signed. He had a series of perfectly amazing adventures 
and hardships, and eventually escaped successfully, after 
the sixth or seventh attempt, about the time of the 
armistice. 

Of all the unusual happenings in Port 9, that which I 
am about to describe is perhaps the most remarkable. To 
steal a large iron-bound box from the Commandant's 
bureau would be at any time a difficult feat, but when it is 
considered that the only opportunity for the theft occurred 
in the middle of the day, and also that the box contained 
compasses and maps by the dozen, several cameras, 



SHORT RATIONS AND MANY RIOTS 147 

solidified alcohol, censored books, in fact all those things 
which we were most strictly forbidden to possess, it must 
be owned that it was an extraordinary performance. It 
was organized and carried out mainly by Russians with 
the help of a few Frenchmen. 

About 11.30 one morning, just after Appell, a Russian 
came into every room along the corridor and informed us 
that there would be a general search by the Germans at 
12.15. We thanked him and hid ail our forbidden prop- 
erty, for a hint of this nature was not to be taken lightly 
at Fort 9. We had no idea what was going to happen, 
and only heard a detailed account of it afterwards. 

When a prisoner attempts to escape and is recaptured, 
he is taken by the Germans into the brueau and searched, 
and for those articles — maps, compasses, etc. — which are 
taken off him he is given a receipt and the articles them- 
selves are deposited, carefully ticketed with the owner's 
name, in a large iron-bound wooden box which is kept in 
the depot outside the fort. 

When, however, prisoners are removed from one camp 
to another, the articles belonging to those prisoners are 
handed to the N.C.O. in charge of their escort and are 
deposited in the depot of the new camp. 

This time two Russians were being sent to another 
camp, and the iron-bound box in question had been brought 
into the bureau so that the senior clerk could check the 
articles as they were handed over. The theft of this box 
was carried out in the following manner. Just before 
midday a party of Frenchmen, I believe, went into the 
bureau and had a violent row with the Commandant — 



148 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

not an unusual occurrence, as I have already explained. 
As the row became more and more heated, other French- 
men and Russians crowded into the hureau. A fearful 
scrimmage and a great deal of shouting ensued, in the 
midst of which a party specially detailed for the purpose 
carried the box unobserved out of the bureau and into 
our "reading room," which was only a few doors away. 
There men were waiting with hammers and other instru- 
ments. The lid was wrenched open and the contents 
turned out on to the floor. Some then fell on the box 
and broke and tore it into small pieces which others carried 
to the different rooms and burnt immediately in the stoves. 
Others again distributed to their owners or hid in pre- 
viously prepared places the contents of the box, so that 
within five minutes the box itself had utterly disappeared 
and all its incriminating contents were in safe hiding- 
places. The row, which had been gradually dying down, 
now dissolved, and very soon afterwards the Germans dis- 
covered their loss. The bells went and we were all 
ordered to our rooms. Then, amid shouts of laughter 
from every room, two rather sullen and shamefaced Ger- 
mans searched vainly for an enormous box which had only 
been stolen five minutes before and for which there was 
no possible hiding-place in any of the rooms. 

Most of us got back some valuable belongings. I got a 
compass and some maps which had been taken off me at 
my first escape, but the most amusing prize was my box 
of solidified alcohol, for which I now held two receipts 
from the Germans as well as the article itself! 



CHAPTEE XIII 



A TUNNEL SCHEME 



IN the earlier chapters of this book I have mentioned the 
fact that some months previous to my capture my 
people at home and I had invented a simple code which 
would enable us, to a very limited degree, to correspond, 
if ever I were unlucky enough to fall into the hands of 
the Germans. 

This may seem to have been morbid anticipation of a 
lamentable occurrence, but I assure you it was only a most 
obvious precaution. Not only did I belong to the R.F.C., 
in which the chances of capture were unavoidably greater 
than in any other service, but my brother had been badly 
wounded and captured at the second battle of Ypres, and 
for over a year we had received no news of him that had 
not been most strictly censored. Soon after my arrival 
at Ingolstadt I wrote home several sentences — it was 
difficult to write much more — in our prearranged code, and 
received answers in the same way. But to obtain my 
mother's efficient cooperation in plans of escape some more 
detailed instructions than could be compressed into our 
code were necessary. We desired accurate maps about 
1 :2 50,000 of the country between Ingolstadt and the 
Swiss frontier, a luminous compass, saws for cutting iron 

bars, cloth which could be made into civilian hats, con- 

149 



150 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

densed and concentrated food of all sorts, and in addition 
detailed instructions must be sent as to how these things 
were to be hidden in the parcels. As we were only allowed 
to write one letter a fortnight and one post card a week, 
to send the information home by my code would have 
been an almost endless task, so I took the risk of writing a 
couple of letters in sympathetic ink, merely using my code 
to say "Heat this letter." 

The results were successful beyond my wildest hopes, 
for not only were instructions obeyed, but my family 
showed very great ingenuity in packing the required 
articles. In due course two luminous compasses and two 
complete sets of excellent maps were received safely. 
Each set of maps consisted of about six sheets each a foot 
square. The letters came from England quicker than the 
parcels, so that, at the same time as my mother sent off 
the parcel containing the maps or compass, she sent me a 
post card to say in what parcel it was coming and in what 
article it was concealed. After that it was my job to 
see that I obtained the article without it being examined 
by the Germans. Watching a German open a parcel in 
which you knew there was a concealed compass is quite 
one of the most amusing things I have ever done. Most 
of the maps came baked in the middle of cakes which I 
received weekly from home, and as I was on comparatively 
good terms with the Germans who searched our parcels, 
they used to hand these over to me without ever 
probing them. 

One of the compasses came in a glass bottle of prunes, 
and I was not surprised when the Germans handed this to 



A TUNNEL SCHEME 151 

me without searching it, as it looked impossible that any- 
thing could be hidden in it. A second compass came in a 
small jar or anchovy paste, and, as I dared not risk asking 
for it, I told the German to put it among our reserve store 
of food and found an opportunity of stealing it about a 
fortnight later. 

I remember decoding one post card from my mother, 
and making out the message to be "Maps in Oswego." 
But what was Oswego ? No one had any idea. 

When the Hun opened my parcel, I was feeling rather 
nervous. Almost the first thing he picked up was a yellow 
paper packet. He felt this carefully, but passed it to me 
without opening it, when I saw with joy that "Oswego" 
was marked on it. There was a large bundle of maps in 
the middle of the flour. Another "near thing" was when 
the whole of the crust on one of my cakes was entirely 
composed of maps, though the baking had browned the oil- 
paper in which they were sewn so that it looked exactly 
like cake. Altogether there is no doubt that I was extraor- 
dinarily lucky to get all the things I did without being 
detected. 

Many other Frenchmen and Englishmen in the fort had 
maps and compasses smuggled through to them, though 
owing to the energy of my people at home, and sheer good 
luck on my part, I doubt if anyone was more successful 
than I was. However, in one way or another, by bribery, 
stealing, and smuggling, I am pretty sure there was an 
average of at least one compass per man throughout the 
fort, and traced maps in any quantity, though originals 
were scarce. 



152 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

There was rather an amusing incident which happened 
when Moretti was chef in Room 42. Buckley was in the 
habit of receiving dried fruit from home, which, for pur- 
poses of his< health, he kept for private use. One day 
Moretti raided this store, in order to give the mess stewed 
fruit for dinner, hut, when he was cooking them, mes- 
sages from home were found floating about in the stew. 
Examination showed that the prunes had been cut open 
very cleverly and a small roll of paper substituted for 
the stone. I have given the above description of one of 
the methods by which maps and compasses were obtained, 
not only because the possession of the things was of im- 
mense importance in our ultimate escape, but because it 
illustrates a fact, which many people believed with dif- 
ficulty, namely, that the Germans are extremely ineffi- 
cient when the use of the imagination is necessary to 
efficiency. They believed they were searching with the 
greatest possible thoroughness: every tin, for instance, 
was opened by them and the contents turned out on to 
a plate, but it was obviously impossible to examine every 
small packet in every small parcel, so that a certain dis- 
cretion had to be used as to what to examine and what to 
pass, and it was quite extraordinary how they invariably 
spotted wrong. I have often wished to know whether the 
German prisoners in England smuggled forbidden goods 
into their camps with the same ease as we did. 

One set of maps I cut down and sewed into the cuff of 
my tunic, and the smallest compass I stowed away in the 
padding on the shoulder. The rest of the stuff I divided 
between Moretti and Decugis, both of whom had been very 



A TUNNEL SCHEME 153 

good friends to me. It was from the latter indeed that I 
received information as to the position of the sentries on 
the Swiss frontier at Kiedheim, where Buckley and I 
ultimately crossed into Switzerland. 

Towards the end of our strict confinement in Eort 9, 
while the moat still remained frozen, the prisoners became 
very restless and a large number of abortive attempts to 
escape were made. These mainly consisted of attempts 
to burrow through the walls or in some way to obtain 
access to the inner courtyards during the night. Once in 
the courtyard it was thought that it would be easy to run 
between the sentries across the moat if the night were only 
reasonably dark. Three Frenchmen actually did get out, 
and, owing to successful "faking" of Appell, their absence 
was not discovered, but they were caught in the courtyard 
before they had crossed the moat. On another occasion 
some Frenchmen, by piling tables and chairs on top of one 
another, had managed to get up to one of the ventilators 
in the passage outside our rooms. Unfortunately they 
were seen by the sentry on the ramparts, who crept up to 
the ventilator, without apparently being observed, and fired 
two shots down through the glass into the crowd below. 
By some extraordinary chance no one was hit, and before 
the Feldwebel and about a dozen soldiers with fixed bay- 
onets could arrive, the temporary structure beneath the 
ventilator had been cleared away and everyone was looking 
as innocent as possible, especially the culprits. Several 
men, including myself, who were gambling or walking 
quietly in the passage, only escaped being bayoneted by 
displaying considerable activity at the critical moment. 



154 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

Some of the Frenchmen spent three weeks of most skillful 
labor in making a hole through 4 feet of masonry into the 
inner courtyard. As these walls were inspected daily by the 
Germans the stones- had to be replaced every day so as 
to leave no trace of the work. I inspected this place myself 
several times in the day time, and am prepared to swear 
that it was impossible to tell which stones were solidly 
imbedded and which were loosely held together by imita- 
tion plaster. Somehow or other this also was discovered 
when it was almost finished. A sentry was placed outside 
the hole. In spite of the sentry, however, the Frenchmen 
removed and threw down the latrine all the stones which 
they had loosened, leaving in their place a placard on which 
was written, "Bepresailles pour le Chateau de Chauny." 
In France the Germans had wantonly destroyed, only a 
few days before this, the beautiful Chateau de Chauny. 
Bar-cutting was also attempted by several Frenchmen and 
Englishmen — Bouzon, Gilliland, and others; but some- 
how unforeseen circumstances always turned up at the 
last moment to prevent an attempt to escape being made. 

On one work, a tunnel, 1 in which Gaskell and I were 
assisting, an immense deal of labor was spent in vain. 
In Boom 49 the Corsican colonel and Moretti and about 
four other Frenchmen had sunk a hole in the corner of 
their room close under the window. This shaft was about 

1 1 have given the story of this tunnel at some length, not because 
it was in any way exceptional, but rather because it shows the 
labor and ingenuity involved in attempts to escape of this type, of 
which there were innumerable examples in Fort 9. A most wonder- 
ful tunnel, 80 yards long I believe, was made by the prisoners at 
Custrin. 



A TUNNEL SCHEME 155 

6 feet deep — that is to say, to the water level of the moat. 
Farther one could not go, as the water came in. From 
here a gallery was bored through the foundations of the 
wall — 4 or 5 feet of very solid masonry. This alone 
took them three weeks. For the next few yards the tunnel 
made better progress until, owing to the nature of the 
soil, they found it necessary to revet the tunnel with 
wood as they advanced. The gallery was so small — only 
20 by 24: inches as far as I remember — that it was im- 
possible to crawl along it. You had to drag yourself 
along on your stomach, and soon the conditions under 
which the work was carried on became so unpleasant that 
two Frenchmen gave it up. Gaskell and I came in as the 
new recruits. It was a horrible job. Most of the time 
one lay in water and worked in pitch darkness, as the air 
was so bad that no candle would keep alight. Gaskell 
was so large in the shoulder that he could not work down 
the tunnel, and I am so long in the arms that I could only 
do it with the greatest difficulty and exertion. After a 
time it was found necessary to pump air to the man at work 
by means of a home-made bellows and a pipe, and this 
made the work slightly more tolerable. From the window, 
the ground, starting at about the same level as the floor of 
our rooms, sloped down to the bank of the moat, dropping 
about 3 feet 6 inches, and from there there was a sharp 
drop of about 2 feet 6 inches to the water or, at the time 
we started the tunnel, to the ice. 

Our object was to come out in the steep bank of the 
moat on a level with the ice and crawl across on a dark 
night. With the ice there I think the idea was an ex- 



156 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

tremely good one, and as nearly certain of success as any- 
thing could be in Eort 9, but it is. obvious from the 
dimensions given that the tunnel towards the end must 
necessarily come within a few inches of the surface of 
the ground. Actually for the last 3 or 4 yards we were 
within 6 inches of the surface, and were able to drive a 
small tube up through which we could breathe. Working 
in the tunnel was a loathsome task, and one hour per day, 
in two shifts, was as much as I could stand. You had to 
lie 12 yards or more under ground, in an extremely 
confined space, in total darkness and in a pool of water. 
The atmosphere was almost intolerable, and sometimes 
one had to come out for a breath of fresh air for fear that 
one would faint. But we did this unwillingly, as it took 
quite two' minutes to go in and about four minutes to get 
out, and so wasted much time. By getting into an ex- 
cruciatingly uncomfortable position, it was possible to 
shovel earth into a wooden sledge made for the purpose, and 
when this was full, at a given signal it was dragged back 
by a man at the pit-head, whose job it was also to work 
the bellows. To your left wrist was tied a string, and 
when this was twitched you stopped work and lay still 
waiting for the sentry to tramp within 6 inches of your 
head, and wondering when he would put his foot through, 
and if he did whether you would be suffocated or whether 
he would stick you with a bayonet. Our safeguard was 
that the top 8 to 12 inches of ground were frozen solid, 
and as long as the frost lasted we were fairly safe, and 
later on we revetted the tunnel very thoroughly with wood. 
All the earth had to be carried in bags along the passage 



A TUNNEL SCHEME 157 

and emptied down the latrines. This was Gaskell's self- 
appointed task, and he must have emptied many hundreds 
of bags in this way. Considering that there was a sentry 
permanently posted outside the windows of the latrines it 
needed considerable skill and judgment to avoid being de- 
tected. We soon found that we needed more labor, and 
two more Frenchmen, de Goys being one of them, joined 
our working party. Moretti was not only chief engineer, 
but also the most skilful and effective workman in the 
tunnel, and it was entirely owing to him that it came so 
near to being a success. I was a mere laborer, and not 
entrusted with any skilled work. 

Unfortunately before the work was finished, the thaw 
came, and we had to make other and much more compli- 
cated plans for crossing the moat. 

It was generally agreed that we could not afford to get 
our clothes wet through in crossing the moat. Moretti, the 
Colonel, and the two other Erenchmen in their party de- 
cided to wade through the moat naked, carrying two 
bundles sewn in waterproof cloth, one containing their 
clothes and the other their food and other necessaries for 
a ten days' march and life in the open in the middle 
of winter. 

Gaskell and I and de Goys and his partner disliked the 
idea of being chased naked in the middle of winter carrying 
two bundles, each weighing 20 pounds or more, so we de- 
cided to make ourselves diving-suits out of mackintoshes. 
After waterproofing the worn patches on them with candle 
grease, and sewing up the front of the neck, where a 
"souflet" or extra piece was let in to enable one to enter 



158 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

the garment from the top, and binding the legs and arms 
with strips of cloth, we felt pretty certain that little or no 
water would enter during the short passage of the moat. 
Whether or not this would have been successful I cannot 
say, for thank Heaven we never tried. As the ground 
gradually thawed, and as the tunnel approached the moat, 
the question of revetting became ever of greater importance. 
In some places the earth fell away and left cavities above 
the woodwork, which we blocked up to the best of our 
ability. There still remained a 6-inch layer of frozen 
earth above us, but for the last week of the work we could 
never be sure that a heavy-footed sentry would not come 
through if he trod on a tender spot. Towards the end, 
the difficulty of obtaining sufficient wood became very acute, 
for a large part of the woodwork of the fort had already 
been burnt in our stoves during the winter. We all of 
us reduced the planks in our beds to the minimum, and 
Moretti, by means of a false key, entered some unused 
living-rooms which were kept locked by the Germans, 
and stole and broke up every bit of wood he could find — 
beds, furniture, stools, shelves, partitions and all. He was 
one day occupied in this way in one of the empty rooms 
when the sentry outside the window saw or heard him, 
and shot into the room at him from about 3 yards' range 
but missed, and Moretti retreated with the wood. At 
last, after three months' work in all, the tunnel was 
finished, and a night selected for the escape. As the 
sentry who walked between our windows and the moat was 
never, even at the far end of his beat, more than 30 yards 
from the exit of the tunnel, we considered it essential that 



A TUNNEL SCHEME 159 

there should be sufficient wind to ruffle the surface of the 
moat, and not too bright a moon. To a certain extent by 
skill, but mainly by good luck, we had come to the exact 
spot on the bank at which we had aimed. The place was 
close under a lantern which was always hung at night near 
the edge of the moat, but owing to the way in which the 
shadows fell we reckoned that the light would dazzle 
rather than help the sentry to see the mouth of the hole 
when it was opened. In the day time the open hole 
could not fail to attract immediate attention, so that we 
intended to cut through the last few inches of earth only 
an hour or so before the escape. 

The Colonel and Moretti were to go first, and then the 
two Frenchmen in their room, as these had done five weeks' 
more work than the rest of us. Gaskell and de Goys 
played baccarat to decide which team should be the next, 
and we won. Then Gaskell and I played to decide who 
should go first of us two, and I won. De Goys and his 
partner lived in the other wing of the fort, so that it was 
necessary for them to fake Appell and remain over in 
our rooms after 9 o'clock at night. This was carried out 
successfully by help of most lifelike dummies in their 
beds, which breathed when you pulled a string, and when 
the German N.O.O. came round on our side de Goys and 
partner just hid under the beds. We got a great deal 
of innocent amusement out of this sort of thing. 

During the afternoon preceding the night on which we 
intended to go, I had a bad fit of nerves, and for half an 
hour or more lay on my bed shaking with funk at the 



160 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

thought of it. However, I completely recovered control 
before the evening. 

The night was not a particularly favorable one; we 
should have preferred a good thunderstorm, but considering 
the thaw which had set in we could not afford to wait. An 
hour before the time for starting someone went down to 
open the species of trap-door which we had made at the far 
end, which would enable us to close the exit after our 
departure. In the meantime the Colonel and Moretti got 
ready. I really felt sorry for them. We, the non-naked 
party, would be reasonably warm, whatever the result 
might be. The Colonel stripped nude and greased him- 
self from head to foot, and then wound puttees tightly 
round his stomach, as a "precaution against a chill," as 
Moretti said. There was good need for precautions, it 
seemed to me, as there were still large lumps of ice floating 
in the moat, and it was nearly freezing outside. Moretti 
just got out of his clothes and picked up his bundles and 
was apparently looking forward to the business, but I 
think he was the only one who was. 

As soon as they were ready to go, Gaskell and I went 
back to our rooms to put on our diving suits, and in the 
passage were standing three German soldiers. Close m-) 
spection showed that they were Bellison, May, and another 
Frenchmen excellently got up. 

They felt perfectly certain, and we were inclined to 
agree, that it was impossible for eight of us to get across 
the moat without someone being seen and shot at by the 
sentry. We knew from Buckley, who had special oppor- 
tunities of observing this whilst in solitary confinement, 



A TUOTEL SCHEME 161 

that when the alarm was given, all the guard turned out 
at the double from the guardroom inside the fort and 
rushed in a confused mob to the outer courtyard. These 
three, dressed as Germans, after having opened all the 
intervening doors by means of skeleton keys, intended to 
join the guards and rush out with them. I think the idea 
was quite excellent, and that their chances of escape were 
much greater than ours. 

When we returned to Eoom 49 we found consternation 
among our party. The man who had been down to open 
the trap-door said that it could not be done, owing to un- 
expected roots and stones, under two hour's work, and by 
that time the moon would have risen. After a hurried 
consultation we agreed to abandon it for that night. 

The next three nights were still and calm and clear 
without a ripple on the water; an attempt would have 
meant certain failure. On the fourth morning a pocket 
about 6 inches deep and a foot in diameter appeared in 
the ground above the tunnel. All that day the sentry did 
not notice it, and that night was stiller and clearer than 
ever. It was impossible to go. 

The next day the N.C.O. whom we knew as the "Blue 
Boy" came round to tap the bars of our windows, and the 
sentry drew his attention to the place where the earth had 
sunk. He tested it with a bayonet, and later a fatigue 
party came along with picks and dug the whole thing up, 
and all our labor was in vain. It was rather sad; but, 
as I said before, looking back now, I feel rather thankful 
that we never made the attempt. The only result, as far 
as I know, was that the members of Eoom 49 were split up 



162 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

among other rooms in the fort, and a sentry was put on 
guard over the mouth of the hole. Moretti came into 
Room 42 and was instantly appointed chef. He also 
started to dig another tunnel somewhere else, which was 
also discovered. Personally I had had enough of tunnels, 
and swore I would never try and escape that way again, 
eo I returned with renewed energy to my Russian lessons. 



CHAPTEK XIV, 

THE BOJAH CASS 

SOON after the failure of our tunnel scheme several 
Englishmen, among whom were Gilliland, Unett, 
and Batty Smith, who had not been convicted by the 
Germans of any evil deeds during the last four or five 
months, were warned that they were going to be removed 
to Crefeld. Great preparations were made for escaping 
on the way, and Gaskell and de Govs seized the oppor- 
tunity to try on the basket trick. Officers who have been 
prisoners for two or three years accumulate quite a con- 
siderable amount of luggage, and it was thought to be 
more than possible that the Germans would not trouble to 
search all of it as it left the fort, as it was quite certain to 
be searched carefully before it entered any new camp. 
Two large clothes-baskets were procured, of which the 
fastenings were so altered that they could be opened from 
the inside. Gaskell and de Goys packed themselves into 
these, and were carried by the orderlies into the parcel 
office in the fort with the rest of the iieavy luggage. Un- 
fortunately a, week or two before this someone had been 
caught entering this room by means of a false key, and 
since then a sentry had been posted permanently outside 

the door. When Gaskell and de Goys, who had already 

163 



164: THE ESCAPING CLUB 

spent nearly four hours in an extremely cramped position, 
attempted to get out of their baskets to stretch their legs, 
the wickerwork creaked so much that the suspicion of 
the sentry outside the door was roused. He called a 
N.C.O., and the culprits were discovered and led, rather 
ignominiously, back to their rooms. 

From Port 9, where the Germans were so very sus- 
picious, this method of escaping would need, I think, more 
than an average amount of luck to be successful, though 
from a normal prison camp it was to my knowledge suc- 
cessfully employed on several occasions. 

The party under orders for another camp left the next 
day and without further incident, and some weeks later 
we heard that six or eight of them got out of the train in 
the neighborhood of Crefeld, and four of them — Gilliland, 
Briggs, and two others — crossed the Dutch frontier after 
three or four nights' march and after overcoming consid- 
erable difficulties and hardships. Gaskell and I applied 
personally to the General to be transferred to another 
camp, and I think most of the remaining Englishmen did 
the same, but our request was received with derision. 

The two officers who escaped gave, I think, rather an 
unnecessarily harrowing description of the life at Eort 9 ; 
for if in what I have written I have given a true picture, I 
think it will be realized that the feeling of bitterness was, 
under the circumstances, except in particular instances and 
with certain individuals, remarkably small. 

Attempts to escape, although thoroughly earnest and 
whole-hearted, were undertaken with a sort of childish 
exuberance, in which the comic element was seldom absent 



THE BOJAH CASE 165 

for long. However, the feeling between the prisoners and 
their guard gradually grew worse, and several incidents 
intensified this bitterness to such an extent that towards 
the end of my time at Fort 9 it seemed scarcely possible 
that we could continue for much longer without blood- 
shed, which up to that time, by pure good fortune, had 
been avoided. 

The Germans had been very irritated when we tore down 
and burnt in our stoves nearly all the woodwork of the 
fort, and the repeated attempts to escape got on their 
nerves. In addition to this, a store of blankets and bed- 
ding caught fire — or perhaps was set on fire by the pris- 
oners, as the Germans believed. The place burnt for three 
days, .and numerous fire-engines had to be sent out from 
Ingolstadt. Also a large pile of paper and boxes from our 
parcels, of considerable commercial value at that time in 
Germany, was deliberately set on fire by a squib manu- 
factured for that purpose, although the pile was guarded 
by a sentry. These and other pinpricks undoubtedly led 
the Germans, as we learnt from one of the sentries, to 
issue most stringent orders to the guard to use their rifles 
against us whenever possible. 

I have already recorded some of the occasions, mostly 
justifiable, when shots were fired at prisoners in the fort, 
but now there occurred an incident which roused the most 
bitter feelings amongst the prisoners. 

We were allowed to walk on the broad path along the 
ramparts, but we were not allowed on the grass on the 
far side. Two Russian officers, newly arrived at the camp 
I believe and ignorant of this rule (for there were no 



166 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

boundary marks of any sort), lay on the grass one hot 
afternoon in the forbidden area. Without a moment's 
hesitation a sentry about 100 yards from them fired two 
deliberately aimed shots without giving them any warning 
whatever. Fortunately he missed them, though they pre- 
sented an enormous target. But the fact that he was an 
exceedingly bad shot did not in any way detract from the 
damnableness of this wholly unjustifiable attempt at 
murder — for that is the way we looked at it. 

About a month before this last event, Buckley, Medli- 
cott, and Batty Smith, finished their spell of "two months' 
solitary" and were welcomed back to the society and com- 
parative freedom of Fort 9. The Germans said that they 
had only been under arrest {Stub enarr est) pending in- 
vestigations, and indeed ever since the row which I have 
called the "Bojah'' case the most searching inquiries had 
been carried out by the Germans. 

Every one who had been in any way concerned or had 
been a spectator of the scene was summoned to Ingolstadt 
to be cross-questioned and his evidence taken down in 
writing. The Germans took the matter very seriously 
and did their utmost to establish a charge of organized 
mutiny against us. We, on the other hand, took the whole 
business as a joke and laid the blame for the affair on 
the fact that the Commandant l©st his temper; and we 
brought, or could have brought, if the trial had been a fair 
one, unlimited evidence to prove that this was not only 
possible but an everyday occurrence at Fort 9. 

At last the case was brought before a court-martial at 
Ingolstadt. As a first-hand account by one of the accused 



THE BOJAH CASE 167 

of a German court-martial on prisoners-of-war may be of 
real interest, I have asked Buckley, who took a leading 
part, to give an account of it in his own words. 

THE BOJAH CASE COURT-MARTIAL 

By Lieut. S. E. Buckley 

On the day fixed for the court-martial a large party of 
Allied officers, consisting of witnesses and accused, were 
paraded and left the fort under a strong escort. The 
French contingent consisted of about eight officers, and 
the British, of Medlicott, Batty Smith, and myself. 

We left the fort at about 8 a.m. and arrived at the 
Kommandantur, to which was also attached the military 
prison, at about 9.15. Here we were all shown into a 
room to await proceedings, and were shortly joined by 
poor old Bojah, the chief accused, and Kicq, both of whom 
had been kept in solitary confinement since the day of 
the row. They both looked awfully "low" and ill, espe- 
cially Kicq, who had been short of food for some time 
owing to the confiscation of his parcels. 

The trial started at 10 a.m., and consisted in the ex- 
amination of Du Celie and Batty Smith. Unfortunately, 
only the officers whose cases were being examined at the 
time were allowed to be present, so that we were only 
able to judge of the temper of the court by the sentences 
imposed. Du Celie, a Frenchman, who had been charged 
with complicity and who conducted his own defense, was 
acquitted. As a matter of fact all he had done was to 
translate a letter written by Batty Smith to the Command- 
ant, at the former's request, in which Batty Smith was 



168 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

alleged to have slandered the Commandant. Batty Smith 
was awarded one and a half year's imprisonment, and 
appealed against his sentence. 

Bojah himself and Kicq were next examined, and as far 
as I can remember they were still before the court when 
the luncheon interval arrived. 

We had brought lunch with us, and we had made it 
as sumptuous as possible in order to impress the Germans 
with the lack of success of their submarine campaign. 
After lunch Medlicott and I had a little quiet amusement 
to ourselves. We had both made fairly elaborate prepara- 
tions for an escape, should an opportunity arise during the 
proceedings. We had a large quantity of food in our 
pockets, and portions of civilian clothing, including mufti 
hats, concealed on our persons. During lunch the sentries 
had been withdrawn from the waiting-room and only one 
remained standing in the doorway. 

The room was on the ground floor and looked out on to 
the courtyard of the military prison ; it seemed but a simple 
mattei to jump out of the window into the courtyard, 
whence, by turning a corner round the building, a clear 
exit could be made on to the main road. We got some 
French officers to start an animated conversation in the 
doorway in order to hide us from the sentry, and we had 
previously arranged with Kicq (who had returned to his 
cell during lunch and whose window overlooked the room 
in which we were collected) to give us the signal when 
all was clear. 

At the given signal from Kicq, Medlicott jumped on to 
the window-sill, and was just about to drop into the court- 



THE BOJAH CASE 169 

yard below, when to my amazement I saw him scramble 
back into the room again and burst into fits of laughter. 
On looking out of the window I discovered the cause. 
There, leaning up against the wall, immediately below, 
was "Fritz," the canteen man from the fort — "Fritz," fat 
and forty, with an ugly leer on his face and brandishing 
a fearsome looking revolver in his hand. He had appar- 
ently been stationed round the corner, where Kicq could 
not see him, and had only just arrived below the window 
as Medlicott was about to jump out 

I might remark that this was the only occasion during 
my whole stay in Germany that I ever came across a 
really intelligently posted guard. 

The examination of Bojah, Kicq, and later De Robiere, 
continued till late in the afternoon. Kicq received a 
sentence of two years, De Eobiere one year, and Bojah 
nine months. As an instance of the gross injustice of the 
whole affair, during De Robiere's trial the public prosecu- 
tor stated that Kicq's action did not receive the support 
of his brother officers, either British or French. This, of 
course, was quite untrue, and De Robiere, who tried to 
protest, was immediately "sat upon" by the president of 
the court. De Robiere made frantic efforts to get a hear- 
ing, and failing in his attempt endeavored to waylay the 
public prosecutor on his way out of court. This brave 
functionary was unfortunately able to elude De Robiere's 
wrath by escaping from a side door. 

Medlicott and I entered the court-room and stood side 
by side facing the officers who composed the court and 
who were seated on a raised platform at the far end of 



170 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

the room. The court consisted of about eight officers 
presided over by an old colonel covered with a multitude 
of parti-colored ribbons. Our two cases were taken to- 
gether. "We were accused of insulting the Commandant, 
escaping from arrest, disobedience to orders, and a few 
other minor offenses; Medlicott, in addition, was accused 
of having broken the ventilator over the door of his cell. 

The proceedings opened in a lively manner by Medli- 
cott, who was in his usual truculent mood, refusing to 
answer any questions. This immediately brought down 
the wrath of the president upon him, and he was told 
that if he persisted in his attitude he would be put in 
solitary confinement for contempt of court. As this didn't 
suit Medlicott's book at all (he was at the time planning 
a fresh escape), I took it upon myself to accuse the in- 
terpreter of having falsely interpreted what Medlicott had 
said. 1 explained that Medlicott wished to ask if he had 
the right to refuse to answer questions. This luckily satis- 
fied everybody (except the interpreter, who didn't count). 

After the Commandant and Feldwebel had given their 
evidence, the former with some anger and more excite- 
ment, I got up and read a long speech in German in 
Medlicott's and my own defense. It is my greatest regret 
to-day that I have no copy of this classic document, which 
had been carefully prepared for me by an Alsatian officer. 
In it I "let myself go" and accused both the Commandant 
and the Feldwebel of cowardice and of shirking going to 
the front. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at their 
expense ; so also, I think, did Medlicott, who turned round 
during my speech and grinned openly in the faces of the 



THE BOJAH CASE 171 

Commandant and the Feldwebel, who were sitting directly 
behind us. After I had read our defense, the public prose- 
cutor summed up the case against us, and, if I remember 
rightly, asked that we might be sentenced to two years' 
solitary confinement each. I think he was rather annoyed 
at the time because we had been able to get hold of a 
German military law book in the fort in which I found 
that we had been accused under the wrong paragraph, and 
this mistake I had enlarged upon in our defense. 

We were then marched out of court, and returned a 
few minutes later to hear the verdict of six weeks' solitary 
confinement for Medlicott and six and a half months for 
myself. Against these findings we both naturally appealed. 

The whole affair had been unjust in the extreme. In 
the first place, the proceedings had been conducted in 
German, of which Medlicott understood next to nothing. 
"We were allowed no defending lawyer; and, finally, our 
request to call witnesses in our defense was disallowed. 



CHAPTEK XV 

THE LAST OF FORT 9 

ONE day at the beginning of May 1917 an incident 
occurred in the fort which ultimately led to the 
removal of the English and Russian prisoners to 
other camp® and to our escape en route. I never saw or 
knew exactly how it started, as I was playing tennis in 
the court below. But it appears that some thirty or forty 
men of mixed nationalities were walking on the pathway 
which ran round the rampart above us, and everything 
seemed quite normal and peaceful, when a shot was heard 
from outside the fort. This was not such an unusual 
occurrence as to cause us to stop our tennis ; but when a 
few seconds later we heard another shot, and there seemed 
to be considerable excitement among the other prisoners 
on the rampart, we left the tennis with one accord and 
ran up the steep stairway on to the rampart. The first 
thing I saw was a group of excited Frenchmen, some 
apparently furiously angry, but all laughing, gesticulating, 
and cursing in French and German in the direction of 
the outer courtyard of the fort, which was 30 or 40 feet 
below them and perhaps 70 yards away. Just as we 
arrived on the scene, they ducked behind the parapet and 
a bullet whistled over our heads. They jumped up like 

Jack-in-the-boxes, and the cursing broke out anew. I had 

172 



THE LAST OF FOKT 9 173 

a cautious look over the parapet, and saw the German 
guard with the Feldwebel drawn up in the outer court. 
There seemed to be a good deal of excitement and shouting 
going on, but as they did not appear to be going to shoot 
again, the Frenchmen and I and several others who had 
crowded to the parapet, after shouting out to the Germans 
what we thought of them, moved away. Just at that 
moment Dessaux, a French artillery lieutenant, strolled 
up with his hands in his pockets and walked towards the 
parapet. At the same moment I caught sight of the sentry 
on the center "caponniere," who was less than 30 yards off 
and standing on the mound above us, making preparations 
to shoot. lie had his hand on the bolt of his rifle, and 
glanced towards the courtyard below, whence it seemed he 
was being urged to fire. Then he came forward a few 
steps in a sort of crouching attitude and snapped a cart- 
ridge into his rifle. I was about 5 yards from Dessaux 
at the moment, and yelled at him to look out as the fellow 
ran forward. Dessaux looked up and, seeing the sentry 
putting up his rifle, crouched behind a traverse of the 
parapet as the fellow fired. The bullet crashed into a 
chimney-pot just behind. Dessaux sat there laughing. 
The sentry reloaded his rifle and glanced about him at a 
crowd of angry men, who were threatening and cursing 
him in four languages from every side. For a moment it 
looked as though the sentry would be rushed, when a 
German N.C.O. came running up the stairway, amid a 
hail of curses, and stopped the man from firing again. 
I remember one Russian pointing his finger and shrieking 
"Schwein !" "Schwein !" at the N.C,0. as he went by. At 



174 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

that moment a Frenchman, Commandant Collet, rushed 
lip to me and said, "Did you see what happened ?" I gave 
a brief account of it. "Come to the bureau," he said, 
"and we will tell them what we think of them ;" and we 
ran down to the bureau together. In the bureau there was 
already a small crowd of excited Frenchmen in front of 
the barrier. The bureau was a small, narrow room with 
a barrier like a shop counter about one-half of the way 
down it. There was only one door to the room, and at 
the far end, on the clerks' and office side of the barrier, 
was a huge, heavily barred window, typical of all the 
windows in the fort. Collet pushed his way to the barrier 
through the other Frenchmen, and addressed the sergeant- 
clerk (a Saxon, and the only decent German in the pl'ace). 
At that moment the Feldwebel pushed his way in, white 
in the face and fingering his revolver ; it was no place for 
him outside, and he was met by a storm of curses and 
threats. "If one of our officers is touched," said Collet, 
"if one is wounded, I swear to you that we will come 
i mm ediately and kill every man in this bureau." Both 
the sergeant-clerk and the Feldwebel understood him, and 
he repeated it several times to make sure that they did. 
The sergeant-clerk tried to pacify him, but we pushed 
our way out of the bureau. 

One result of this row was that the bars, were taken out 
of the big window at the back of the bureau to provide 
a back means of escape for the bureau staff. A second 
important result was that, when we came to compare notes, 
we found we had a very good case against the Feldwebel, 
the charge being, "Instigating his men to murder." 



THE LAST OF FORT 9 175 

There was a prisoner in the fort, an Alsatian, Stoll "by 
name, who spoke German perfectly, German being his 
native language, though I doubt if he would allow that. 
At the time when the guard were heing changed and the 
row started, he was sitting in our reading-room, of which 
the window was not more than 40 yards away from where 
the Feldwebel was making a speech to the guard. The 
Alsatian overheard and was able to take down nearly every 
word of the speech, which was something as follows : "The 
prisoners you have to guard are criminals — you are to lose 
no opportunity of using your arms against them — be sus- 
picious of everything they do — everything is an attempt 
to escape; therefore you must shoot to kill whenever 
possible." 

At that moment the Feldwebel caught sight of a group 
of Frenchmen standing on the parapet above, who were 
laughing among themselves (they swore afterwards that 
they were offering no provocation whatever). The Feld- 
webel thought they were mocking the guard, and gave 
orders to the sentry in the courtyard to fire. The first 
shot the man fired over their heads without taking careful 
aim. After that, when the Frenchmen bobbed up again 
from behind the parapet, both sides cursed and shouted. 
Two more well-aimed shots followed ; then the Feldwebel, 
seeing, I think, that there was small chance of hitting any 
one when there was a parapet to duck behind, shouted 
repeatedly to the man on the center "caponniere" to fire, 
with the result I have already described. 

Fourteen of us made out accurate affidavits in German 
of what we had seen, and sent them in to the general in 



176 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

charge of the camp, demanding an inquiry, if there was 
such a thing as justice in Germany. 

About a fortnight later, a rumor went round, which 
was confirmed after a few days, that all the Russian and 
English prisoners were to be moved to other camps. The 
news caused a great sensation, as most of us had consid- 
ered that we were fixtures in Fort 9 till the end of the 
war, or till we could escape. Some of the Russians and 
all the English were most suspicious, characters, and we 
could scarcely expect to be insufficiently guarded on our 
railway journey. Nevertheless, we all went into strict 
training. Two days before we went, we were informed 
that we were being sent to Zorndorf. BucHey had been 
a prisoner there before coming to Eort 9, and said that it 
was a most intolerable place, and that the change we were 
making was distinctly for the worse. Nothing would in- 
duce him to go back there, he said, without making an 
effort, however hopeless, to escape en route. He and I 
joined forces, having no very definite plans. The train 
would take us directly away from the Swiss frontier. It 
was' to our advantage, then, to get off the train as soon as 
possible; for, besides the extra distance every moment in 
the train put between us and the frontier, we had no maps 
of the country north of Ingolstadt. From Ingolstadt to 
the frontier was about 130 miles 1 , or rather more, and for 
all that part I not only had excellent maps which had been 
sent out to me from home, but from other prisoners who 
had attempted to escape in that direction we had accurate 
and detailed knowledge of the whole route from Fort 9 
to the frontier. 



THE LAST OF FORT 9 177 

Buckley and I decided to get off the train at the first 
opportunity, and then, if the distance were not too great, 
to walk. If it was too far to walk, we should have to 
risk jumping or taking a train. All the details we had to 
leave to circumstances. We had this in our favor, that we 
both talked German fairly fluently and well enough, with 
luck, to pass for Germans if only a few words were needed. 
Against us was the fact that, as we were going officially 
hj train, we had to be in almost full uniform. By dint 
of continually wearing grey flannels, the English had in- 
duced the Germans to believe that gray flannels was part 
of the English uniform. I struck a bargain with a French- 
man for a Tyrolese hat, and Buckley very ingeniously 
made himself a very German-looking hat out of an old straw 
hat and some cloth. For food, we both stuffed the pockets 
of our tunics full of chocolate and condensed foods. Be- 
sides this I carried a home-made haversack full of biscuits 
and raw bacon, and Buckley had a small dispatch-case in 
which he had mainly condensed food — oxo cubes, Horlick's 
malted milk, meat lozenges, etc. Thus equipped, and with 
Burberry© to cover our uniforms, we thought we should 
pass as Germans in the dark. Our outfit was far from 
being all that could be desired ; but it is hard to see how 
we could have carried more food, or more suitable clothes, 
even if we had possessed them, without raising suspicion 
as we left the fort. We were not the only party which 
was making preparations to escape. Medlicott and Wilkin 
certainly had something on — I don't know what the scheme 
was, though I have a sort of idea they intended to try 
and get off near an aerodrome in the neighborhood of 



178 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

Berlin. Gaskell and May had some ideas of a bolt on 
the way up from the station at the other end. Buckley 
and I also intended to bolt there, if we could not get off 
before. Then there were the Russians. There were sev- 
eral parties among them, good fellows too and reliable, 
but perfectly certain to make a mess of any scheme they 
went for. It was most important to see that they did 
not spoil any good chance that might come along by pre- 
maturely doing something absolutely mad. As a general 
rule, however, they placed great reliance on our superior 
judgment, and we thought we could keep them in hand. 
The general opinion was that we should never have the 
ghost of an opportunity, and when we saw our guard on 
the morning of May 22nd we almost gave up hope. Our 
heavy luggage had been sent on early. Wilkin, by the way, 
had an enormous wooden box with secret hiding-places 
all over it which were stuffed full of maps and tools for 
cutting iron bars, etc., all of which latter he had made 
and tempered himself. He was also an expert locksmith 
and had a large assortment of skeleton keys. As our 
names were called, we passed through the iron gate over 
the moat and stood in the outer courtyard, surrounded 
by a guard of fifteen efficient-looking Huns who were to 
escort us. There were only thirty of us going, so we con- 
sidered fifteen guards and an officer rather excessive. One 
amusing incident happened before we marched off. One 
of the Frenchmen took a Russian's place, dressed in 
Russian uniform, and came out when the Russian's name 
was called. He was recognized, however, by the sergeant, 
who was no' fool, and pushed back into the fort amid shouts 



THE LAST OF FORT 9 179 

of laughter. After some delay the Russian was found 
and brought out. 

We had a 7-mile walk to the station and, as always in 
Germany, a two hours' wait there. We spent those two 
hours infuriating the officer in charge of us by taking 
as little notice as possible of any orders that he gave us, 
and by talking or shouting to all the French, Russian, or 
English Tommies who passed us in working parties from 
the large soldier prisoner-of-war camp at Ingolstadt. At 
last we were rather tightly packed into quite decent second- 
class carriages. Six of the English got together in one 
carriage, and a sentry was put in with us. We edged up 
and gave him the corner seat next the corridor, and another 
'Sentry marched up and down the corridor outside. At 
the first review the situation seemed rather hopeless. The 
only chance was a large plate-glass window of the normal 
type, which we were compelled to keep closed. There was 
not much chance of our fellow going to sleep, with the 
sentry in the corridor continually looking in. German 
sentries always work in pairs like that, and usually one 
would report the other without hesitation. There was no 
door in the iside of the carriage opposite to the corridor. 
Just before we started, the officer came in; he had been 
fussing round a great deal, and was obviously very anxious 
and nervous. Prisoners from Fort 9 had a bad reputa- 
tion. He asked if we were comfortable. I answered yes 
for the party, and told him that we strongly objected to 
being shouted at, as he had shouted at us in the station. 
He apologized. It was only his way he said. We had 
disobeyed orders and he had got angry and then he always 



180 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

shouted. He hoped that now we would have a comfortable 
quiet journey and no more trouble. I said he would not 
help matters anyhow by shouting — as it only made us 
laugh. He took this rebuke quite well and went off. I 
am afraid he had a good deal of trouble ahead of him, 
and I have no doubt he shouted at frequent intervals most 
of that journey. 

As we got into Nuremberg, the first large town, about 
70 miles north of Ingolstadt, it was beginning to get dark. 
There we waited for two hours or more. 

Up to that time no incident of any interest had occurred, 
and the chance of escape had been very small. It was 
hardly worth it in the daylight, and we were now a devilish 
long way from the frontier. However, Buckley and I 
decided that if we got an opportunity any time during the 
night we would take it. After leaving Nuremberg we went 
slowly through a fairly dark night. It was not too dark to 
see that we were traveling through a well-wooded and rather 
hilly country, and our hopes began to rise. On leaving 
Nuremberg, Buckley and I took the two corner seats near 
the window. It had been decided in the carriage that as 
Buckley and I were best prepared, both in the matter of 
food and by the fact that we alone talked German, the 
others should give every assistance in their power to get 
us away. They were a good lot of fellows in that carriage, 
and the spirit of self-sacrifice which existed in Fort 9, 
where three nationalities were crowded together, was be- 
yond anything which one could possibly have anticipated. 
Escaping came before everything, and was an excuse for 
any discomforts which one or two members might bring 



THE LAST OF FOKT 9 181 

on the rest of the community. If you wished for help, 
almost any man in the fort would have helped you 
blindly, regardless of consequences. 



CHAPTER XVI 



WE ESCAPE 



TOWARDS midnight, after we had shut our eyes 
for an hour to try and induce the sentry to go to 
sleep, I hit on a plan, which I believe now to have 
been the only possible solution of the problem. There were 
six of us and a sentry in a small corridor carriage, so 
that we were rather crowded ; both racks were full of small 
baggage, and there was a fair litter on the floor. When 
the train next went slowly, and when I considered the 
moment had come, I was to give the word by saying to the 
sentry, in German of course, "Will you have some food ? 
we are going to eat." Then followed five or ten minutes 
of tense excitement, when we tried to> keep up a normal 
conversation but could think of nothing to say. Medlicott 
had the happy thought of giving me some medicine out of 
his case, which came in most useful ; but all he could say 
was, "It's a snip, you'll do it for a certainty." Suddenly 
the train began to slow up. "Now?" I said to Buckley, 
and he nodded, so I leant across and said to the sentry, 
"Wir wollen essen; wollen Sie etwas nehmen?" Then 
every one in the carriage with one accord stood up and 
pulled their stuff off the racks. The sentry also stood up, 

1>ut was almost completely hidden from the window by a 

182 



WE ESCAPE 183 

confused mass of men and bags. Buckley and I both stood 
up on our seats. I slipped the strap of my haversack 
over my shoulder — we both of us already had on our 
Burberrys — pushed down the window, put my leg over, 
and jumped into the night. I fell — not very heavily — 
on the wires at the side of the track, and lay still in the 
dark shadow. Three seconds later Buckley came flying 
out of the window, and seemed to take rather a heavy toss. 
The end of the train was not yet past me, and we knew 
there was a man with a rifle in the last carriage ; so when 
Buckley came running along the track calling out to me, 
I caught him and pulled him into the ditch at the side. 
The train went by, and its tail lights vanished round a 
corner and apparently no one saw or heard us. "Whether 
the sentry saw us get out, neither Buckley nor I ever 
knew, but anyhow I think Medlicott had him pretty well 
wedged up in the corner. There must have been an amus- 
ing scene in the carriage after we left, and I am ready 
to bet that the officer shouted a bit. 1 As soon as the train 
was ought of sight, Buckley and I walked back down the 
track for a couple of hundred yards and cut across country 
in a southwest direction. There was no danger from any 
pursuit from the train. It was a darkish night, and there 
were pine forests in all directions. A hundred men chas- 
ing us would not have caught us. Besides, if they sent 
caps, and got out our compasses and a very poor sketch 

a I have learnt since from Major Gaskell that nearly a minute 
elapsed before the sentry realized that we had departed. After the 
discovery there was a good deal of ill-feeling, which was accentuated 
by two Russians escaping in much the same manner an hour later, 
but they were recaptured. 



184 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

any of our guard after us, more prisoners would escape. 
Under a convenient hedge we made the few changes which 
were necessary in our clothes, threw away our military 
map of Buckley's, which was. to serve us as a guide for 
tho next hundred kilometres 1 and more, till we could use 
our proper maps. 

We were, we reckoned, between 10 and 15 miles almost 
due north of Nuremberg. We would have to skirt this 
town — though we discussed the advisability of walking 
straight into Nuremberg and doing a short railway journey 
from there before any alarm or description of us could 
have reached the place. We had such a long way to go, 
and so little food considering the distance. But we could 
not bring ourselves to rish so much so soon after getting our 
liberty. "It is doubtful anyhow," we said, "whether it 
would be a judicious move; let's have a week's freedom 
at any rate before we take so great a risk." 'Considering 
the nature of the country, we thought we had an excellent 
chance of not being caught till our food ran out, if we 
took every precaution and had no bad luck. It was so 
extraordinarily pleasant to be free men once more, if only 
for a short time. 

First Night. — This was entirely without incident; we 
marched by compass, mainly by tracks through pine 
forests, and frequently caught sight of the lights of Nur- 
emberg on our left. Just before dawn we lay up in a 
pleasant coppice a hundred yards or so from the edge of a 
quiet country road. We took the precaution of sprinkling 
some pepper on our tracks where we entered the wood, 
and thus, to some extent guarded against stray dogs, we 



/ 



WE ESCAPE 185 

felt pretty secure. The day seemed intolerably long from 
4.30 a.m. till 9.30 p.m. — seventeen hours; the sun was 
very hot and there was very little shade, and we were im- 
patient to get on. Our water-bottles too held insufficient 
water : we only had about one and a quarter pint between 
us, Buckley having a small flask and I a watertight 
tobacco tin. Throughout the journey I think it was the 
weariness of lying up for seventeen hours, rather than the 
fatigue of the six to seven hours' march at night, which 
wore out not only our nerves but our physical strength. At 
no time of any day could we be free from anxiety. The 
strain of passing through a village where a few lights 
still burnt, or crossing a bridge where we expected to be 
challenged at any moment, never worried me so much, 
under the friendly cover of night, as a cart passing or men 
talking near our hiding-place. 

The general routine which we got into after about the 
third day out was as follows : — We went into our hiding- 
place at dawn or shortly after, that is to say, between 4.30 
and 5.15, and after taking off our boots and putting on 
dry socks we both dropped asleep instantly. This may 
seem a dangerous thing to have done. One of us ought 
always to have been awake. But the risk we ran in this 
way was very small indeed, and the benefit we got from 
that first sound sleep, while we were still warm from 
walking, was so great that we deliberately took whatever 
risk there was: it was almost non-existent. ^Nothing ever 
seemed to stir in the country-side till after 6.30. During 
the rest of the day one of us always remained awake. 
After half an hour's sleep we would wake shivering, for 



186 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

the mornings were very cold, and we were usually wet from 
the dew up to our waists. Then we had breakfast — the 
great moment of the day. At the beginning rations were 
pretty good, as I underestimated the time we should take 
by about four days. To begin with, I thought we should 
come within range of our maps on the third night, but 
we did not get on them till the fifth. Half a pound of 
chocolate, two small biscuits, a small slice of raw bacon, 
six oxo cubes and about ten tiny meat lozenges and a few 
Horlick's malted milk lozenges — this was the full ration 
for the day. "We never had more than this, and very soon 
had to cut it down a good deal. We varied this diet with 
compressed raisins, cheese, or raw rice instead of the 
meat or chocolate. The oxo cubes and half the chocolate 
we almost always took during the night, dissolving the 
former in our water-flasks. Later on, when things began 
to look very serious from the food point of view, we helped 
things out with raw potatoes, but I will come to that later 
on. On the first day we took careful stock of our food, 
which we redistributed and packed ; and then decided — 

(1) that we had at a guess about 200 miles to walk; 

(2) that we would make for the German Swiss and not 

the Austrian Swiss frontier ; 

(3) that we would walk with the utmost precaution 

and not take a train or try to jump a train till 
we were at the end of our tether ; 

(4) that by walking round Nuremberg we should be 

sure to hit a good road taking us south or 
southwest ; 

(5) that we would not start to walk before 9.30 in the 



WE ESCAPE 187 

open country, or 9.45 if there were villages in 
the neighborhood (we broke this rule twice, and 
it nearly finished the expedition each time) ; 

(6) that we would never walk through a village before 

11 p.m. if we could help it; 

(7) last, but not least, that we would always take the 

counsel of the more cautious of the two at any 
moment. 

A vfery large percentage of the officers in the fort where 
we had been prisoners for the last six months had made 
attempts and had marched through Germany towards 
different frontiers for periods varying from a few hours to 
three or four weeks, so that we had a great quantity of 
accumulated experience to help us. For instance — con- 
trary to what one would naturally suppose — it was safest 
and quickest to walk along railways — especially if you 
could answer with a word or two of German to any one 
who shouted to you. And there was the additional advan- 
tage that the chance of losing the way along a railway was 
very small. 

Second Night. — We started from our hiding-place 
about 9.30 p.m. and made our way for a mile or two 
across country and through woods, going with quite un- 
necessary caution till we hit a decent road going south, 
soon after ten o'clock. 

After walking fast along this for an hour or so we 
were going up a steepish hill when Buckley complained of 
feeling very tired. This was a bad start, but after resting 
a few minutes he was strong enough to go on and gradu- 
ally got better towards the end of the night. Erom there 



188 



THE ESCAPING CLUB 



Nores:~ 

The figures represent (fit d&dy hiding puiais 

■"■ RmUe of escape 

* Railways 




?W'/'W£tad&vm /. 



SKETCH-MAP SHOWING ROUTE OF ESCAPE FROM GERMANY 



WE ESCAPE 189 

onwards it was Buckley who was on the whole the stronger 
walker, at least he had most spare energy, which showed 
itself in those little extra exertions which mean so much — 
euch as climbing a few yards down a river bank to get 
water for both, and being the first to suggest starting again 
after a rest. Of course we varied, and sometimes I and 
sometimes he was the stronger — and there is no doubt 
that between us we made much better progress than either 
one of us could have done alone. About 11.30 we got 
rather unexpectedly into a large village and had to walk 
boldly through the middle of it. There were one or two 
people about, but no one stopped or questioned us. A 
little later we crossed a railway which ran slightly south 
of west, and hesitated whether to take it on the chance of 
hitting a branch line leading south, but we decided to 
stick to the road. An hour or so later, however, the road 
itself turned almost due west, and we were forced to take 
a poor side road, which gradually developed into a track 
and then became more and more invisible till it lost itself 
and us in the heart of a pine forest. We then marched 
by compass, following rides which led in a south or south- 
west direction. 

I afterwards found out by studying the map that there 
are no main roads or railways leading in a south or south- 
west direction through that bit of country. Time after 
time during the first five nights we were compelled to 
take side roads which led nowhere in particular, and we 
found ourselves tripping over hop-poles and wires, or in 
private property, or in the middle of forests. Towards 
5 o'clock we were getting to the edge of this piece of forest, 



190 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

and lay up in a thick piece of undergrowth and heather — 
a very pleasant spot, though we were rather short of water, 
not having found any in the forest. The day, a very hot 
one, passed without incident, though several carts and 
people passed within 25 yards of our hiding-place. 

Third Night. — About 9 o'clock we were absolutely sick 
of lying .still, and very thirsty. As the whole place seemed 
deserted we decided to start walking. We soon found 
a stream, and after quenching our thirst walked by 
compass and hit a main road leading slightly east of south 
about half a mile farther on. We found ourselves on 
the northeast side of a valley about a mile broad which 
had the appearance of a marsh or irrigation meadow 
covered with rank grass. On either side were hills covered 
with thick pine woods. The only thing to do was to go 
along the road, even if it did lead slightly east of south. 
I may say here that we badly miscalculated the distance 
the train had brought us north on my maps. We hoped 
during this third night to see on a sign-post the name of 
a town mentioned on the map which would tell us where 
we were, and for this purpose we had learnt by heart the 
names of all the towns and villages along the northern 
border of the map. It was all a question of time and 
food, and progress through pine forests by compass was 
very slow work. It was therefore essential to hit a main 
road going south as soon as possible, and we determined 
to ask our way. As we were filling our water-bottles from 
a rivulet at the side of the road a man and a boy came 
by on bicycles. I hailed them and asked what the name 
of the village was which we could see in the distance. 



WE ESCAPE 191 

They got off their bicycles and came towards us, and the 
man answered some name which I did not quite catch. 
Then he looked curiously at us and said : "Sie sind Aus- 
lander" (You are foreigners). "No, we aren't," I said; 
"we are North Germans on a walking tour and have lost 
our way." "Sie sind Auslander," he answered in a highly 
suspicious voice. Buckley said he did not care a damn 
what he thought, and I added that just because we did 
not speak his filthy Bavarian dialect he took us for 
foreigners, "Good evening" — and we walked off down the 
road. He stood looking after us, but we both had thick 
sticks and he could not have stopped us whatever he may 
have thought. "We walked till we were out of sight round 
a bend and then, perforce, as the open valley was on our 
right, turned left-handed and northwards into the pine 
forest. 

During the next hour and a half we made a huge left- 
handed circle, always with the fear upon us of being 
chased. Several times we thought we heard men and dogs 
after us, and in several different places we covered our 
tracks with pepper. It was a thoroughly unpleasant ex- 
perience, but about 11.30 we felt, sure we had thrown 
off any pursuers and determined to walk in the right 
direction. We should have done this before, only the 
valley lay right across our path. We struck a high road 
leading almost south, and soon afterwards found ourselves 
entering a village. It was a long, straggling village, and 
before we were half-way through dogs began to bark. 
We hurried on and got through without seeing any men. 
After a mile or "two the road turned almost east, and we 



192 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

suddenly found ourselves on the same old spot where we 
had spoken to the man. We kept on down the road and 
avoided the next village by an awful detour through thick 
pine woods and over very rough country, and then hitting 
the road again we crossed to the southwest side of the 
valley and made good progress along pathways and tracks 
in an almost southerly direction. 

At every sign-post Buckley used to stand on my shoul- 
ders, and with the help of a match read out the names and 
distances whilst I took them down for comparison with 
my map in the day time. About 2 o'clock we cut at right 
angles into a main road going east and west. I insisted 
on taking this, arguing that we had already marched too 
much east and that our only chance of hitting a south- 
leading road lay in marching west till we hit one. After 
a short time the road turned south and we made excellent 
progress till 5 o'clock, when we passed' through a village in 
which we dared not stop to examine the sign-post, and 
lay up on a wooded hill on the south of it. Only one in- 
cident frightened us a good deal. It was getting towards 
morning when we saw a man with a gun approaching us 
along the road. However, he passed with a gruff "Good 
morning," which we answered. 

We found ourselves when morning came, in an almost 
ideal spot for "lying up," and could sit in safety at the 
edge of our coppice and see the country for miles to the 
east of us. I was lying there studying the map, hoping, 
in vain as it proved, to find on it some of the names which 
we had taken down from sign-posts, when it suddenly 
occurred to me that the valley at which we were looking 



WE ESCAPE 193 

fitted in very well with one of the valleys on the northern 
edge of the map. After prolonged study we were unable 
to decide for certain — there were some annoying discrep- 
ancies; hut "the wish is father to the thought," and we 
thought we were right. The next night's march would 
decide, anyhow. If we marched southwest through a pine 
forest for about an hour we would hit a road and a rail- 
way and a river all together, and then we would know 
where we were; and if we did not hit them, we should 
know we were still lost. 

Fourth Night. — We started about 9.45, having learnt 
our lesson from the previous night, and after walking 
through a forest for over an hour, without coming across 
the desired road, river, and railway, we found ourselves 
falling over things like hop-poles with wires attached, and 
running up against private enclosures, and still in the 
middle of an almost trackless forest. Several times we 
had anxious moments with barking dogs. When we got 
clear of these my temper gave way and I sat down, 
being very tired, and cursed everything I could think of — 
forests, hop-poles, dogs, the roads, and Buckley. Buckley 
recovered himself first, telling me "not to be a fool," and 
we struggled on once more. From that night on we swore 
we would stick to the roads and have no more cross- 
country walking. I seem to remember that we zigzagged 
all over the place that night, always keeping to the roads, 
however, and walking fast. After midnight we came 
through several villages and started the dogs barking in 
each one. Once a man came out with a light and called 
after us; we said "good night" to him and pushed on, 



194 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

"but it was most trying to the nerves. My God, how wo 
loathed dogs! Later we came on a valley in which was 
a river 20 yards, or more broad. Our road passed through 
a village at a bridge-head, from which came sounds of 
revelry and lights were showing; so we turned off, and 
instantly got into the middle of a perfect network of 
hop-poles. Eventually we found a bridge lower down 
near an old mill. There was a road running parallel with 
the river on the far side, and something above it which 
on investigating turned out to be a railway. The question 
was, "Is this the valley we are looking for?" It soon 
turned out that it was not. The direction which the line took 
after we had followed it eastwards for several miles decided 
the question, and after going a mile out of our way back 
to the river to get water, we took a good road leading south. 
We were both very tired, and struggled on, with great 
difficulty and several rests, up a steep hill through the 
longest village I have ever seen. It seemed miles and 
miles, and dogs barked the whole way. The villages about 
here had drinking-troughs for horses at the street sides, 
which were a great boon to us. 

Soon after dawn we got into an excellent hiding-place 
without further, adventures. We were very exhausted, and 
were beginning to feel the lack of food. The cross-country 
marches of the last two nights had been a heavy tax on 
our strength. We were not yet on our maps, and ti 
most moderate estimate of the distance from the Swiss 
frontier, when considered in relation to our food supply, 
made it necessary to cut down our ration very considerably 
from this time onwards. We were much worried during 



WE ESCAPE 195 

that day by shooting which went on in the wood round us. 
It is the German habit to go out shooting for the pot on 
Sundays, and many escaping prisoners had been recaught 
in this way. We had to lie consequently most of the day 
with our boots on, prepared to bolt at any moment. How- 
ever, our hiding-place was good, and though men and 
carts passed close to us, I don't think we ran much risk 
of being found. 

Fifth Night. — The first village we came to lay across 
a stream in the middle of a broad and marshy valley. 
It was about 11 o'clock, and as we approached we heard 
sounds of music, singing, and laughter coming from the 
village. It was Sunday night, and I suppose there was 
a dance on or something of the sort — it was too much for 
us at any rate, and a® there seemed no way round owing 
to the river, we sat down in a clump of trees outside the 
village and waited. About 11.30 the sounds died down 
and just before 12 o'clock we got through the village with- 
out mishap, though we passed two or three people. We 
were making excellent progress along a good straight road 
which ran, for a wonder, in the right direction, when 
suddenly we heard a whistle from the woods on our left 
and ahead of us — the whistle was answered from our rear. 
We are fairly caught this time, we thought, but we walked 
steadily on. We had big sticks and the woods were thick 
at the sides of the road. There were more whistles from 
different sides, and then just as we were passing the spot 
where we had heard the first whistle a line of men came 
out of the woods in Indian file and made straight for us. 
There were ten or twelve of them trotting in a crouching 



196 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

attitude. They passed a yard or two behind us, crossed 
the road, and disappeared into a corn field on the other 
side. "Boy scouts, begorra," said Buckley. "I wish we 
were well out of this," I said. "I hope to heaven the little 
devils won't make it part of the night operations to arrest 
every one coming down that road. If we have to knock out 
some of them, the villagers would murder us; and we 
should never shake them off, once they had an inkling of 
what we were; I would rather tackle men any day." 
Buckley agreed heartily, and we walked on fast. Several 
times afterwards those cursed whistles sounded, but we 
gradually left them behind. 

At last we hit a railway, running east and west, of 
course. Our road here took a right-angle turn and ran 
beside the railway, and we were compelled to take a much 
worse road leading uphill among trees. The road gradu- 
ally got worse. We soon recognized the symptoms. How 
often in the last few days had we followed roads which 
degenerated by slow degrees- and ended by entangling us 
in hop-poles and private gardens in a forest! A quarter 
of an hour later this one proved itself to be no exception 
to the rule. Buckley was all for pushing on by compass 
through the forest. I absolutely refused, and after some 
argument we decided to retrace our steps to the railway 
and follow it westwards. This we did, and after walking 
several miles along the railway we took a good road which 
ran north and south, cutting the railway at right angles. 
After walking for an hour or more along this road we 
came to a milestone which, as usual, we inspected care- 
fully. On it were the words : Gunzerihausen, 8 Kilometres. 



WE ESCAPE 197 

We could have shouted for joy. Gunzenhausen was 
marked on the northern edge of my map. We knew where 
we were. 

It is impossible to describe what a difference this knowl- 
edge made to us. For the last three days we had been 
oppressed by the feeling that we were lost, that we were 
walking aimlessly, that we were continually on the wrong 
road and using up our food and strength in making detours. 
For the future we would know that every step we took 
would be one step nearer the frontier, and during the day 
we could lie and plan out our route for the following 
night — we could make fairly accurate calculations with 
regard to food — in fact, the whole problem of distance and 
food supplies was' now clear and simple, and we had some 
chocolate to celebrate the occasion. At the next village 
we saw by a sign-post that the road to Gunzenhausen turned 
almost due west. I wished to go straight on southwards 
down a decent road, but Buckley wished to go for Gun- 
zenhausen, the only name which we knew as yet. After a 
rather heated argument I gave way. Our tempers were 
rather irritable, but we were never angry with each other 
for more than five minutes, and as soon as we had re- 
covered our tempers' we used to apologize. We almost 
walked into a sentry in Gunzenhausen before we knew we 
were in the town. However, we retreated, and making a 
short detour lay up in a small oak wood about 3 miles 
south of the town, having accomplished that night a very 
good march. The place where we were hiding was by 
no means an ideal spot, as the undergrowth was not very 
thick. It was rather an anxious day, as we again heard 



198 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

shooting in the woods in the neighborhood, but no one 
disturbed us. After a careful study of the map we found 
that, by cutting across in a southwest direction about five 
miles of flat, low-lying country, we would hit a railway 
which went due south to Donnauworth, about 60 miles 
away. 



CHAPTEK XVII 

THROUGH BAVARIA BY NIGHT 

£1IXTH NIGHT.— The walk across the plain took us 
A^P nearly two hours. Much of it was very marshy, 
and it was all sopping wet with dew, so that, before 
reaching the railway, we were wet to the waist. There was 
also a nasty obstacle in the shape of a canal. The only 
bridge was almost in a village, and as we approached, all 
the dogs in the place began to bark, so we tried to cross 
in an old punt which we found. Getting this afloat, how- 
ever, made so much noise that we desisted and made for 
the bridge, which we crossed without mishap in spite of a 
regular chorus of dogs. Thank Heaven, they appeared to 
be all chained up. All the rest of the night we walked 
along the railway. Twice men in signal-boxes or guard- 
houses called after us. We always answered something in 
German and then made a short detour round the next 
building, small station, guardhouse, or signal-box which 
we came to. In every one of them there was a dog which 
barked as we passed. The detours wasted much time and 
were very tiring, so we deliberately took more risks and 
walked straight on, in spite of the dogs, as long as we 
neither saw nor heard a human being. That day we lay 

up in a lonely spot in a thickish wood on one side of a 

199 



200 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

railway cutting overlooking the town of Treuchtlingen. 
Treuchtlingen was only marked as a small village on our 
maps, but it turned out to be a huge junction with an 
enormous amount of rolling stock and many sidings — all 
quite newly built, we thought — almost certainly since the 
war started. 

Seventh Night. — As we thought we should run less risks, 
this apparently being a line of military importance and 
therefore possibly guarded, we decided to take a main road 
rather than follow the railway. We marched all night 
without incident and towards morning at the village of 
Monheim we turned back to the railway in order to reach 
some woods which were marked on the map. The woods 
turned out to be most unsuitable for our purpose. They 
were mostly well-grown oak or pine with no undergrowth 
whatever. Daylight found us still hunting for a decent 
hiding-place. At length we decided the best we could do 
was to lie between the edge of a wood and a barley field, 
a most exposed position if anyone should come that way. 
Soon we had no chance of changing our position if we 
would, as women at a very early hour began to work in the 
field within 100 yeards of us. About 4 o'clock in the 
afternoon we heard a movement in the woods behind us. 
We had rigged up a sort of screen of boughs on that side, 
but we could scarcely hope that anyone would pass with- 
out seeing us if they came close. 

Eor an hour or more we lay not daring to move, and at 
length saw an old woman gathering sticks. She came 
nearer and nearer, and suddenly looked up and saw us. 
We were pretending to be half-asleep, basking in the sun, 



THKOUGH BAVAKIA BY NIGHT 201 

so we just nodded to her and said "Good-day." She said 
something in patois which I did not quite catch, about 
sheep or shepherds. I said "Ja wohl," and she moved off 
rather quickly we thought, but it may have been that our 
guilty consciences made it seem so, and soon afterwards 
we heard her speaking to someone way off. As soon as 
she was out of sight we thought it best to move. There 
was no possible hiding-place to go to, so we walked farther 
into the wood and selecting the largest tree sat down one 
each side of the trunk. Our idea was to play hide-and- 
seek round the tree if anyone came by or if the old woman 
came back; and if there was a systematic search to trust 
to our legs. We had over four hours to wait before it 
would become dark and before we could feel at all safe. 
I think the old woman came back to the spot where we had 
been lying, but finding us gone did not rtouble to search 
for us. 

Eighth Night. — We got away from the wood about 9.30, 
and all that night we walked along the railway. I have 
rather a hazy recollection of the night's march, but as far 
as I remember it was quite without incident. Just north 
of Donnauworth we had to cross an iron bridge over a 
tributary of the Danube, 100 yards or more long, and 
thinking it might be guarded we stalked it with the 
utmost care. There was no one there, however, but when 
half a mile beyond it, we thought we ought to have taken 
a branch line farther back ; so we crossed the bridge again, 
each time making noise enough to wake the dead with our 
nailed boots on the iron. After another prolonged study 
of the map, I found we had been right after all, and for 



202 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

the third time we crossed that beastly bridge. Studying 
the map at night was no easy matter. The method was 
for me to sit down in a convenient ditch or hollow, and for 
Buckley to put his Burberry over my head. I then did 
the best I could by match-light. A few miles north of 
Donnauworth we turned off to the right and marched at 
a distance of a few miles parellel to the north bank of the 
Danube. Just before morning it began to rain and we got 
into a good hiding-place in thick undergrowth, wet through 
and very tired. It was a miserable morning, but about 9 
the sun came out and dried us and cheered us up. 

For the last few nights my feet had been gradually 
getting worse. The backs of both heels seemed to be 
bruised, and from this night onwards the first half-hour's 
Walk every night caused me intense pain. Once I was 
warmed up, the pain became less acute, but every step 
jarred me and sent a shooting pain up my legs. I was 
wearing boots I had bought in Germany and the heelings 
had sunk into a hollow, so that the weight of every step 
came on the very back of the heel. I am sure this made the 
marching very much more fatiguing for me than it would 
otherwise have been. We were not disturbed that day, 
and as we had a lot of bare country to walk over, we 
started rather earlier the next night. 

Ninth Night. — The problem before us was how to cross 
the Danube, which about here was 200 to 300 yards 
broad. We thought it was only too probable that all the 
bridges would be guarded. Fifteen miles or rather more 
from where we were, the light railway, which we had 
been following for the last two nights, crossed the Danube. 



THROUGH BAVARIA BY NIGHT 203 

Within a mile of that railway bridge another foot or 
road bridge was marked on our map, but the insignificance 
of the roads or rather tracks which appeared to lead to 
this bridge made us doubt the existence of a 300-yard 
bridge in such an out-of-the-way bit of country. How- 
ever, if it did not exist, we could always try by the rail- 
way. Some 8 miles from our hiding-place the light rail- 
way turned gradually south and crossed the Danube about 
7 miles farther on. If we followed the railway and 
branched off from it when we were within a mile or two 
of the river it seemed impossible that we could lose our 
way. The night was a very dark one as there was a thick 
mist, but we made excellent progress, walking sometimes 
on the road and sometimes along the railway. 

About midnight we began to think it was time that the 
line should take the southerly bend as marked on the 
sketch map, and every ten minutes or so we took compass 
bearings of its direction. However, we knew by experi- 
ence how easy it is for tired men to overrate the distance 
they have walked. I got into a ditch and looked at my 
map, and there was no other railway shown on it. At 
1 o'clock we found ourselves walking north of west, and 
realized definitely that we were wrong somehow. Some 
arc lights showed dimly through the mist on our left. We 
walked on cautiously, and as so often happens in a thick 
mist found ourselves with extraordinary suddenness within 
150 yards of some huge sheds each surrounded by five or 
six electric lights. What they were we neither knew at 
the time nor found out later. I had another look at the 
map and came to the correct conclusion that we had 



204 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

followed an unmarked branch line. We had just started 
back, when we caught a glimpse of a man. He was com- 
ing from the direction of the sheds, in a crouching attitude, 
and had a gun in his hands. He was about 100 yards 
away and it was certain that he could see us very indis- 
tinctly, because of the mist. So we ran. Once out of 
range of the arc lights he had no chance of finding us. 
Erom there we cut across country by compass, and half 
an hour later hit the railway east of Gundelfingel. At one 
time we had hoped to cross the Danube that night, but 
losing our way had made this out of the question. It was 
even doubtful now whether we should reach the woods on 
this side of the Danube, but we were most anxious to get 
to them, as it looked from the map as if the country between 
would be rather bare of hiding-places. Eor this reason 
we took rather more risks and walked boldly through the 
dark stations. At one place two men were about to cross 
the railway, but when they saw us coming they turned 
and ran. It was quite comforting to think that we had 
frightened someone. 

At dawn we were still on the line, and the country 
seemed most unpromising for lying up. The mist was 
still pretty thick, and during the next hour it got thicker. 
One could see about 100 yards, and we never knew from 
one moment to another what we might run into. After 
half-past five, for instance, we suddenly found ourselves 
in the middle of a village, probably Petersworth, and as 
we hurried down a street we had no idea whether we were 
walking farther into a small town or through a small 
village. The mist, though it hid us to a certain extent, 



THEOUGH BAVAEIA BY NIGHT 205 

at the same time made it quite impossible to see what sort 
of country it was and to select a hiding-place. We knew 
there were woods ahead, and the only thing to do was to 
push on till we came to them. The thick mist had the 
curious effect of making it appear that there were woods 
on all sides of us. "We several times turned off only to 
find that the imaginary woods retreated as we advanced. 
The worst of it was that, as can well be imagined, we were 
quite unfit to be seen, and a single glimpse of us must 
inevitably arouse suspicion. Clad in filthy khaki, filthy 
ourselves, limping along with ten days' growth of beard 
on our faces, and thick sticks in our hands, we were figures 
such as might well cause anxiety in a quiet neighborhood, 

It was after 6 o'clock and broad daylight when we 
reached the woods. The undergrowth was thick and rank, 
and most of the ground almost a swamp. It was a most 
unpleasant spot, though pretty safe as a hiding-place. The 
day was a hot one, and we were pestered all day by sting- 
ing insects. Our faces and hands, and, when we took off 
our boots, our feet too, became swollen and pimpled all 
over from the bites. The bites on my feet came up in 
blisters which broke when I put on my boots and left 
raw places. As the insect bites did not seem to affect 
Buckley's feet to the same extent, he lent me his slippers. 
Slippers of some sort are almost an essential part of one's 
equipment. You can neither rest your feet nor dry your 
boots if you keep your boots on in the day. In this and 
every other way Buckley showed himself the most 
unselfish and cheering companion imaginable. That day 
we tried boiling some rice, using as fuel some solidified 



206 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

alehohol which we had; but it was not a success, as we 
had not sufficient fuel and all the wood in the place was 
wet. After a miserable day we started to hunt for our 
bridge, with faces, feet, and hands swollen and aching 
and clothes and boots still damp from the night before. 

Tenth Night — After a two hours' walk we found the 
bridge.' It was a wooden one, with a broad road and a 
footpath on it. It was the biggest wooden bridge I have 
ever seen. There seemed to be no guard on it, so we 
walked across. As we were in the middle we suddenly 
saw a man coming to meet us, and thought we were fairly 
collared. Bluff was the only hope, so we walked straight 
on. The man turned out to be a young peasant, who 
took no notice of us, and we reached the other bank with 
a sigh of relief. After passing through Offingen we had 
to thread our way through a network of country lanes 
and small villages. [We walked straight through them, 
for we now realized more clearly than ever that, if we 
were to reach the frontier on the food we had, we could 
afford very little time for detours. Sometimes we would 
get half-way through before a dog would bark and start 
all the rest, but usually we marched through to a chorus 
of barking dogs. It was a terrible strain on the nerves, 
but not, I think, so dangerous as one might imagine, as 
the dogs barked too often and too easily for their masters 
to be roused at one outburst of barking. Still, it effect- 
ually prevented us from ever trying to break into a house to 
get food. In one village we walked into five or six young 
men, soldiers on leave perhaps. There was no avoiding 
them, so we walked straight on through the middle of 



THKOUGH BAVARIA BY NIGHT 207 

them, and said good evening as we passed. What they 
thought we were I don't know, but they did not try to 
stop us or call after us. 

At the next village, Goldbach by name, there were 
sounds of shouting and singing, so we made a long and 
difficult detour and most unfortunately came back on the 
wrong road on the far side — a very easy thing to do. We 
only discovered this an hour later, when the compass bear- 
ing of the road was found to be wrong. This necessitated 
a long and tiring cross-country march to reach the right 
road; and, very wet and tired, we got into an excellent 
hiding-place in a small spruce fir wood just after dawn. 
If ever we had to walk through standing crops — and this 
was unavoidable in any detour of cross-country march — 
we were always wet through to the waist from the dew. 
One notable thing happened just before we got into our 
hiding-place, which was to prove our salvation. We came 
across a field of potatoes. The haulm was on the average 
only 6 to 8 inches high, and no potatoes were as yet formed ; 
but in most cases the old seed potato had not yet gone 
rotten, so we used to pick these out and replant the haulm. 
Much cheered by this addition to our rations, Buckley and 
I tramped on for another mile or so before selecting our 
hiding-place for the day. ^We ran little risk, as up the hill 
to our left were thick woods, on the edge of which we were 
walking, while on our right the ground eloped away over 
ploughed fields to a rich valley. Soon after dawn we 
found an almost ideal place in which to spend the day. It 
was a thick copse of small pine trees with thickish under- 
growth, about a mile northeast of the village of Billen- 



208 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

hausen — on the whole, about the pleasantest place we found 
during the expedition. Here Buckley, who has something 
of the boy scout in him, started to make a fire without 
smoke. I went outside to veto the fire if much smoke 
appeared above the tree-tops. It was most exasperating. 
On that still morning a thin column of smoke rose perpen- 
dicularly high above the trees. Buckley came out and had 
a. look at it and agreed to abandon the fire, and to eat our 
potatoes raw. It was a warm, sunny day, and we remained 
quite undisturbed; so, at the usual hour, feeling much 
fresher and cheerier, and thanking God for the raw pota- 
toes, we started off on our eleventh night's walk. 

Eleventh Night. — We had another reason for feeling 
more hopeful, for the last two nights we had been walking 
south, and this night we expected to cut into the direct 
route from Ingolstadt to the frontier — a route which we 
had studied for months with the greatest care and almost 
knew by heart. Many other escaping prisoners had passed 
that way, and those who had been recaught (much the 
greater part of them, unfortunately) had given us the 
benefit of their experiences. After a short walk we came 
to Billenhausen, where many lights were showing, but 
through which it was necessary to pass, as we wished to 
cross the stream to the west bank, and the only bridge 
was in the middle of the village. After a council of war 
we decided to march boldly through at 10.30. This we 
did without attracting undue attention. It was always 
nervous work walking through a village when lights were 
showing and dogs barking. The risk, however, was not 
so great as it seemed, so long — and here was the danger — 



THROUGH BAVAEIA BY NIGHT 209 

as we did not lose our way in the village and turn into a 
blind alley. After an hour or more along a good road we 
came on a light railway and followed that for some time, 
standing aside, I remember, at one place, to let a train pass. 
About midnight we saw the town of Krumbach ahead of us. 
Krumbach was on the route that we knew, so, leaving 
it on our left, we cut accross country to our right, through 
some extremely wet crops, and hit the main road west of 
Krumbach. For the rest of the night, after crossing the 
river at Breitenthal, we made excellent progress, the road 
leading us through huge pine forests, and it was not until 
half an hour before dawn that we came out into more open 
country. It was then somewhat after 4.30. There was a 
steep hill in front of us with the village of Eordholz on a 
river at the bottom of it. There was an excellent hiding- 
place where we were, but on the far side of the village my 
map showed that there should be extensive woods. A 
village close in front of your hiding-place means a late 
start on the next night ; but then we might find no suitable 
hiding-place on the far side — for not only had we little 
time to spare before people would be about, but also there 
was a thick mist, which, as we knew from our experience 
just before crossing the Danube, added greatly to the 
difficulties of finding a hiding-place. Buckley was for 
going on. I was for staying where we were, my vote 
being influenced by the fact that my feet had been more 
than usually painful that night. However, we went on, 
and half an hour later saw large woods through the mist 
on our left. On investigation they proved quite useless 
for hiding-place purposes. It was now becoming danger- 



210 



THE ESCAPING CLUB 



£m&4 mitts 

-i — ■ 




<j flttfti/w* 



SKETCH-MAP SHOWING PLAN OF ESCAPE TN PALESTINE 



THEOUGH BAVAEIA BY NIGHT 211 

ously late, and when we had spent another ten minutes 
in a futile search we decided that we must return to the 
first place. At this hour in the morning it would he most 
dangerous to go hack through the village, so we tried to 
go round it. After getting wet to the waist going through 
some meadows, we came to a river 5 yards broad, which 
looked very deep. Swimming was not to he thought of, 
as it was a very cold morning and we were exhausted, 
so we went hack through the village the way we had come. 
It was 5.30 when we passed through and several people 
were about, but we met no one, and the mist hid us to a 
certain extent. At last, very tired indeed (for an hour 
we had been walking at high pressure), we threw ourselves 
down in our hiding-place. 

We were awfully wet and cold, and after we had lain 
shivering with our teeth chattering for a couple of hours, 
the sun rose and drove away the mist. ]STo sunlight 
reached our hiding-place, it was too thick, so we crept 
out to an open space in the wood and sunned ourselves. 
A little-used footpath ran close by us, and we soon con- 
sidered the position we were in to be too dangerous, and 
retreated to the edge of the wood to a spot which was more 
or less screened by bushes from the path. I slept and 
Buckley watched. As we were lying there, a man with 
a gun, a forester probably, came along the path, and 
passed without seeing us. He could not have missed us if 
he had glanced our way. Buckley woke me, and we 
crept back into the dank wet undergrowth, feeling much 
annoyed with ourselves for the unnecessary risk we had 
taken. As the day got warmer we revived, and passed it 



212 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

not unpleasantly, and without further disturbance. Un- 
fortunately, the night before we had been unable to collect 
potatoes, but we promised ourselves that in future one of 
our most urgent duties' would be to collect a pocketful 
each. We believed then, but I don't know how true it is, 
that there were some very savage laws against the steal- 
ing of seed potatoes. If we were caught with potatoes 
on us, we could scarcely expect to be leniently treated, and 
our reception by the villagers was also doubtful; so 
we made arrangements to throw, our potatoes away 
immeditely, if chased. 



CHAPTEK XVIII 

THEOUGH WUBTEMBEKG TO THE FRONTIEE 

TWELFTH NIGHT. — ©wing to a village in front 
of us, we had to make a late start. It was nearly 
10.30 before we marched through without inci- 
dent. Later on that night, between 1 and 2 a.m., we 
crossed the Iller at the large town of Illertissen, and 
though there were many street lamps burning, we met no 
one. This night's march and the next one were very 
weary marches for me, as my feet hurt me most abomin- 
ably. Buckley was perfectly splendid, and though he 
must have been very tired, he was cheerful and encourag- 
ing the whole time. He allowed me to grumble, and did 
nearly all the dirty work, the little extra bits of exertion, 
which mean so much. We both of us found walking 
uphill rather a severe strain, even though the gradient 
was slight ; still, we kept at it with very few rests all 
night. Early in the night we stole some potatoes and 
peeled and munched them as we marched. 

About this time we took to singing a® we marched. 
Singing is, perhaps, rather a grandiloquent term for the 
no i se — something between a hum and a moan — which we 
made. However, it seemed to help us along. Buckley 

213 



214 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

taught me some remarkable nursery rhymes. One was 
about Jonah in the whale's belly, I remember ; and we sang 
these and a few hymn tunes which we both happened to 
know. There was no danger in this — the sound of our 
feet on the road could be heard much farther than the 
song, and no one could possibly have recognized the 
words as English. 

After collecting a good supply of potatoes, we found a 
comfortable place to hide in some small fir trees and 
heather at the edge of a wood. 

For some hours we were made rather miserable by a 
heavy shower of rain, but when the sun came out towards 
midday we soon dried ourselves, and then, as usual, lay 
gasping and panting for the rest of the day. In under- 
growth it is hard to find shade from a sun which is 
almost directly overhead. Our day's ration of water was 
very small, and I am sure that lying in the sun for eight 
or ten hours took a lot of strength out of us. I know that 
we started each night's march parched with thirst. I 
was, at this time, able to make a fairly accurate calcula- 
tion of the time it would take us to reach the frontier, and 
found it necessary to cut down our rations once more. 
We hoped to make this up by eating largely of potatoes, 
for it was only too obvious that both of us were becom- 
ing weaker for the want of food. Food — that is to say, 
sausages, eggs, beef, and hot coffee — was a barred subject 
between us, but I remember thinking of several distinct 
occasions on which I had refused second helpings in pre- 
war days, and wondering how I could have been such a 
fool. We realized now that it would be necessary to lose 



WURTEMBERG TO THE FRONTIER 215 

no time at all if we were to reach the frontier before we 
starved. 

Thirteenth Night. — Accordingly, the next night we 
walked through the village ahead of us> at an earlier hour 
than that at which we usually entered villages. We saw 
and were seen by several people, but we walked at a good 
steady pace, when necessary talking to each other in 
German, and were past before they had had time to con- 
sider whether we looked a queer pair. We must have 
looked pretty good ruffians, as we had not washed or 
shaved, and had been in the opea for close on a fortnight. 
About 3.30 a.m. we came to the large town of Biberach, 
and in the outskirts of the town we climbed down to the 
embankment from a bridge over the railway, and then 
followed the railway in a southwest direction till nearly 
5 a.m. We lay up in a small copse about 60 by 40 
yards, at the side of the railway. It proved to be a damp, 
midgy, and unpleasant spot, but we were undisturbed 
all day. 

Fourteenth Night. — The next night we made an early 
start, walking parallel with the railway, on which we con- 
sidered it dangerous to walk before 10.45, across some bare 
cultivated land, and thereby gained half an hour. For the 
rest of the night we followed the railway, passing through 
Aulendorf and Althausen. This railway runs- east and 
west and is some 30 miles from Lake Constance. From 
here, for the first time, we caught sight of the mountains 
of Switzerland on the far side of the lake. A great 
thunderstorm was going on somewhere over there, and 
their snowy peaks were lit up continually by summer 



216 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

lightning. I suggested, though I never meant it seriously, 
that we should cut south and try and cross or get round 
the east end of the lake. Buckley was all for the Swiss 
border, and though we argued the pros and cons for a hit, 
we neither had the slightest doubt that Kiedheim, where 
we eventually crossed, was the place to go for. Along the 
railway at intervals of 2 or 3 kilometres were small houses, 
inhabited apparently by guardians of the line, and always 
by dogs. Sometimes we could steal by without arousing 
attention, but usually the dogs barked whilst we were 
passing and for ten minutes after we had passed. I have 
never really liked dogs since — the brutes. 

Once a man with a dog, and what looked like a gun, 
came out after us and chased us for a bit, but it was all in 
the right direction, and he soon gave it up. Once or 
twice men called after us — to which we answered "Guten 
Abend," and marched on. One of these threw open a 
window as we were passing, and asked us who we were 
and where we were going — "Nach Pfullendorf? Grade 
aus," I called back. "All right," he shouted; "there are 
so many escaping people . (Fliilingen) these days that one 
has to keep a look-out. Guten Abend." "Guten Abend," 
we shouted, and marched on. 

Though, unfortunately, we were unable to find potatoes 
that night, we were so cheered by the sight of Switzerland, 
the promised land, and by our tactful methods with the 
watchmen, that we made wonderful progress. Unfortu- 
nately a bit of my map of that railway was missing. I 
thought the gap was about 10 kilometres, but it turned 
out to be nearer 20. We had hoped to pasa Pfullendorf 



WURTEMBERG TO THE FRONTIER 217 

that night, but did not do so. When we got into our 
excellent hiding-place at the side of the railway, careful 
measurements on the map showed us that it would be 
quite impossible to cross the frontier on the next night, 
as we had at one time hoped to do. We intended to get 
within 10 or 15 kilometres of the frontier the next night, 
and cross the night following. We did not wish to lie up 
close to the frontier, as we knew from other prisoners that 
the woods close by were searched daily for escaping pris- 
oners. During the day, which was most pleasant, we once 
more divided our rations to last two more days. It was 
a pretty small two-day ration for two men already weak 
from hunger. 

Our eagerness to get on, and the unpopulated country in 
which we were, induced us to start walking at a still 
earlier hour the next night. 

Fifteenth Night. — Soon after starting we saw a gang 
of a dozen or more Russian prisoners escorted by a sentry. 
They were about 100 yards off and took no notice of us. 
After walking for about half an hour an incident occurred 
which was perhaps the most unpleasant one we experi- 
enced, and the fact that we extricated ourselves so easily 
was entirely due to Buckley's presence of mind. Com- 
ing round a corner, we saw ahead of us a man in soldier's 
uniform cutting grass with a scythe at the sido of the road. 
To turn back would rouse suspicion. There was nothing 
for it but to walk past him. As we were opposite to 
him he looked up and said something to us which we did 
not catch. We answered "Good evening," as usual. But 
he called after us again the same words, in some South 



218 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

German dialect, I think, for neither of us could make out 
what he said, so we walked on without taking any notice. 
Then he shouted "Halt! Halt!" and ran down the road, 
after us with the scythe. It was an unpleasant situation, 
especially as we caught sight at that moment of a man with 
a gun on his shoulder about 50 yards away from us on 
our right. There was still half an hour to go before it 
would be quite dark, and we were both of us too weak 
to run yery fast or far. There was* only one thing to do, 
and we did it. In haughty surprise we turned round and 
waited for him. "When he was only a few yards away, 
Buckley, speaking in a voice quivering with indignation, 
asked him what the devil, etc., he meant by calling "Halt !" 
to us; and I added something about a South German pig 
dog in an undertone. The man almost let drop his scythe 
from astonishment, and turning round walked slowly 
back to the side of the road and started cutting grass again. 
We turned on our heels and marched off, pleased with 
being so well out of a great danger, and angry with our- 
selves that we had ever been such fools as to run into it. 
We passed one more man in the daylight, but ostentatiously 
spoke German to each other as we passed him, and he took 
no notice. 

Before dark we saw other gangs of Russian prisoners. 

About 11 p.m. we got on the railway again, and walked 
without incident for the rest of the night. Owing to the 
gap in our maps, previously referred to, being longer than 
we expected, it was not till well after midnight that we 
passed through Pfullendorf and realized that we still had 
another two nights' march before we could hope to cross 



kWURTEMBEKG TO THE FRONTIER 219 

the frontier. It was not so much the walking at night 
which we minded though we were both weak and weary, 
it was the long lying up in the day time which had become 
almost unendurable. For eighteen long hours we had to 
lie still, and were able to think of little else but food, and 
realize our intense hunger. 

When I saw the name Pfullendorf written in huge 
letters in the station, I felt a very pleasant thrill of satis- 
fied curiosity and anticipated triumph. We had always 
called this railway the "Pfullendorf railway," and in the 
past months I had often imagined myself walking along 
this railway and passing through this station, only a 
day's march from the frontier. Eor the last two nights 
and for the rest of the journey my feet had become numbed, 
and the pain was very much less acute. This made a vast 
difference to my energy and cheerfulness. So much so 
that for the last four nights I did the march with less 
fatigue than Buckley, who seemed to be suffering more 
than I was from lack of food. I have already mentioned 
that we divided up the food, and each carried and ate 
at his own discretion the food for the last three days. 
When Buckley opened his last packet of chocolate, it 
was found to contain less than we had expected. I 
offered a redivision. Buckley, however, refused. I 
think myself that the quantity of food in question was too 
small to have affected in any way our relative powers of 
endurance. Ever since we found potatoes Buckley had 
eaten more of them than I had, and when we were unable 
to find any, he felt the lack of them more than I did. Just 
before dawn we climbed off the railway embankment to a 



220 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

email stream. Here I insisted on having a wash as well 
as a drink. Buckley grumbled at the delay, but I think 
the wash did us both good. Soon afterwards, about 
4.30 a.m., we came on an excellent hiding-place. Buckley 
wanted to push on for another half an hour, but I con- 
sidered that a good hiding-place so close to the frontier 
was all-important, and he gave in. As we were just get- 
ting comfortable for our before-breakfast sleep I found 
that I had left my wrist compass behind at the place 
where we had washed. I determined to walk back and 
fetch it, as it was an illuminate compass and might be 
indispensable in the next two nights. That I was able to 
do this short extra walk with ease and at great speed — I 
even got into a run at one point — shows how much fitter 
and stronger I was now that my fee't had ceased to hurt 
me. Our hiding-place was in a very thick plantation 
of young fir trees, and we were quite undisturbed. The 
place was so thick that when I crawled off 10 yards from 
Buckley I was unable to find him again for some time, 
and did not dare to call to him. 

Sixteenth Night. — Starting about 10.15 we followed the 
railway as it turned south towards Stokach near the west 
end of Lake Constance. Just before midnight we struck 
off southwestwards from the railway. We soon found 
that we had branched off too early, and got entangled in a 
village where a fierce dog, luckily on a long chain, sprang 
at us and barked for twenty minutes after we had passed. 
Later we passed a man smoking a cigarette, and caught 
a whiff of smoke, which was indescribably delicious, as 
we had been out of tobacco for more than a fortnight. 



WTTRTEMBERG TO THE FRONTIER 221 

A couple of hours' walk, steering by compass by small 
paths in thick woods, brought us into the main road to 
Engen. Some of the villages, such as JSTenzingen, we 
avoided, walking round them through the crops, a tiring 
and very wet job, besides wasting much time. At about 
4.30 we were confronted with the village of Rigelingen, 
which, being on a river, was almost impossible to "turn," 
so we walked through it, gripping our sticks and prepared 
to run at any moment. However, though there were a 
few lights showing, we saw no one. 

About 5 o'clock we got into an excellent and safe hiding- 
place on a steep bank above the road. A mile or so down 
the road to the west of us was the village of Aach, and we 
were less than 15 kilometres from the frontier. 

We determined to eat the remains of our food and cross 
that night. I kept, however, about twenty small meat 
lozenges, for which, as will be seen later on, we were 
extremely thankful. During our last march we decided 
that we must walk on the roads as little as possible. Any 
infantry soldier knows that a cross-country night march 
on a very dark night over 10 miles of absolutely strange 
country with the object of coming on a particular village 
at the end, is an undertaking of great difficulty. 

We had an illuminated compass, but our only methods 
of reading a map by night (by the match-light, with the 
help of a waterproof, as I have previously explained) made 
it inadvisable to use a map so close to the frontier more 
often than was absolutely necessary. I therefore learnt 
the map by heart, and made Buckley, rather against his 
will, do so too. We had to remember some such rigmarole 



222 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

as: "From cross roads 300 yards — S.W. road, railway, 
river — S. to solitary hill on left with village ahead, turn 
village (Weiterdingen) to left — road S.W. 500 yards — 
E. round base of solitary hill," etc., etc. Our anxieties 
were increased by two facts — one being that all the sign- 
posts within 10 miles of the frontier had been removed, 
so that if once we lost our way there seemed little prospect 
of finding it again on a dark night; secondly, the moon 
rose about midnight, and it was therefore most impor- 
tant, though perhaps not essential, to attempt to cross the 
frontier before that hour. "We left behind us our bags, our 
spare clothes and socks, so as to walk as light as possible, 
and at about 9.30 left our hiding-place. 

Seventeenth Night. — The first part of our walk lay 
through the thick woods north of Aach, in which there 
was small chance of meeting anyone. For two hours on a 
pitch-dark night we made our way across country, finding 
the way only by compass and memory of the maps. There 
were moments of anxiety, but these were instantly allayed 
by the appearance of some expected landmark. Unfor- 
tunately the going was very heavy, and in our weak state 
we made slower progress than we had hoped. When the 
moon came up we were still 3 to 4 miles from the frontier. 

Should we lie up where we were and try to get across the 
next night? The idea of waiting another day entirely 
without food was intolerable, so we pushed on. 

The moon was full and very bright, so that, as we walked 
across the field's it seemed to us that we must be visible for 
miles. After turning the village of Weiterdingen we were 
unable to find a road on the far side which had been 



WURTEMBERG TO THE FRONTIER 223 

marked on my map. This necessitated a study of the map 
under a mackintosh, the result of which was to make me 
feel doubtful if we really were where I had thought. It 
is hy no means easy to locate oneself at night from a small- 
scale map, 1:100,000, examined by match-light. How- 
ever, we adopted the hypothesis that we were where we 
had thought we were, and disregarding the unpleasant 
fact that a road was missing, marched on by compass, in 
a southwest direction, hoping always to hit the village of 
Riedheim. How we were to distinguish this village from 
other villages I did not know. Buckley, as always, was 
an optimist; so on we went, keeping as far as possible 
under the cover of tree® and hedges. 

Ahead of us was a valley, shrouded in a, thick mist. 
This might well be the frontier, which at that point fol- 
lowed a small stream on either side of which we believed 
there were water meadows. At length we came on a good 
road, and walking parallel with it in the fields, we fol- 
lowed it westwards. If our calculations were correct, 
this should lead us to the village. 

About 1.30 we came on a village. It was a pretty place 
nestling at the foot of a steep wood-capped hill, with fruit 
trees and fields, in which harvesting had already begun, 
all round it, "Was it Riedheim? If it was, we were 
within half a mile of the frontier, and I knew, or thought I 
knew, from a large-scale map which I had memorized, 
the lie of the country between Riedheim and the frontier. 
We crossed the road and after going about 100 yards came 
on a single-line railway. I sat down aghast. There was 
no doubt about it — we were lost. I knew there was no 



224 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

railway near Riedheim. For a moment or two Buckley 
failed to realize the horrible significance of this railway, 
but he threw a waterproof over my head whilst I had a 
prolonged study of the map by match-light. ■ I was quite 
unable to make out where we were. There were, however, 
one or two villages, through which railways passed, within 
range of our night's walk. I explained the situation to 
Buckley, who instantly agreed that we must lie up for 
another night and try to make out where we were in the 
morning. It was impossible that we were far from the 
frontier. Buckley at this time began to show signs of 
exhaustion from lack of food; so leaving him to collect 
potatoes, of which there was a field quite close, I went in 
search of water. After a long search I was not able to 
find any. We collected thirty to forty potatoes between 
us, and towards 3 a.m. made our way up the hill behind 
the village. The hill was very steep, and in our exhausted 
condition it was only slowly and with great difficulty that 
we were able to climb it. Three-quarters of the way up, 
Buckley almost collapsed, so I left him in isome bushes 
and went on to find a suitable place. I found an excellent 
spot in a thick wood, in which there were no paths or 
signs that any one entered it. I then returned and fetched 
Buckley, and we slept till dawn. 

. At this time I was feeling fitter and stronger than at 
any time during the previous week. I am unable to ex- 
plain this, unless- it was due to the fact that my feet had 
quite ceased, to hurt me seriously. 

At dawn we had breakfast on raw potatoes and meat 
lozenges which I divided out, and then, sitting just inside 



WURTEMBERG TO THE FRONTIER 225 

the edge of the coppice, tried to make out our position 
from a close study of the map and the surrounding country. 
In the distance we could see the west end of Lake Con- 
stance, and a compass bearing on this showed us that we 
were very close to the frontier. Through the village in 
front of us there was a railway. There were several 
villages close to the frontier through which passed rail- 
ways, and two or three of them had steep hills to the north 
of them. We imagined successively that the hill we were 
sitting on was the hill behind each of these villages, and 
compared the country we could see before us carefully 
with the map. That part of the country abounds in soli- 
tary hills capped with woods, and the difficulty was to 
find out which one we were sitting on. There was one 
village, Gottmadingen, with a railway through it, and 
behind it a hill from which the map showed that the view 
would be almost identical with that we saw in front of 
us. Buckley thought we were there. I did not. There 
were small but serious discrepancies. Then I had a 
brain wave. We were in Switzerland already, and the 
village below us was Thaingen. It explained everything — 
or very nearly. Buckley pointed out one or two things 
which did not seem to be quite right. Again then, where 
were we ? I think now that we were slightly insane from 
hunger and fatigue, otherwise we should have realized 
without difficulty where we were, without taking the risk 
which we did. I don't know what time it was, but it was 
not till after hours of futile attempt to locate ourselves 
from the map from three sides of the hill, that I took off 
my tunic, and in a gray sweater and in gray flannel trous- 



226 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

ers walked down into the fields and asked a girl who was 
making hay what the name of that village might be. She 
was a pretty girl in a large sun-bonnet, and after a few 
preliminary remarks about the weather and the harvest, 
she told me the name of the village was Riedheim. I 
must have shown my surprise, for she said, "Why, don't 
you believe me?" "Naturally, I believe you," I said; 
"it is better here than in the trenches. I am on leave and 
have walked over from Engen and lost my way. Good 
day. Many thanks." She gave me a sly look, and I 
don't know what she thought, but she only answered 
"Good day," and went on with her haymaking. I walked 
away, and getting out of her sight hurried back to Buckley 
with the good news. "But how could a railway be there ?" 
I thought. "It was made after the map was printed, you 
fool." On the way back I had a good look at the country. 
It was all as clear as daylight. How I had failed to recog- 
nize it before I can't think, except that it did not look a 
bit like the country that I had anticipated. There was the 
Z-shaped stream, which was the guarded frontier, and there, 
now that I knew where to look for it, I could make out 
the flash of the sun on a sentry's bayonet. Everything 
fitted in with my mental picture of the large-scale map. 
The village opposite to us in Switzerland was Barzheim ; 
the little hut with a red roof was the Swiss Alpine Club 
hut, and was actually on the border between Switzerland 
and Germany. Once past the sentries on the river we 
should still have 500 yards of Germany to cross before we 
were safe. 

The thing to do now was to hide, and hide in the thickest 



WURTEMBERG TO THE FRONTIER 227 

part we could find. The girl might have given us away. 
Anyhow, we knew that the woods near the frontier were 
usually searched daily. Till 4 o'clock we lay quiet, well 
hidden in thick undergrowth, half-way up the lower slopes 
of the Hohenstoffen, and then we heard a man pushing his 
way through the woods and hitting trees and hushes with a 
stick. He never saw us, and we were lying much too 
close to see him, though he seemed to come within 15 
yards of us. That danger past, I climbed a tree and took 
one more look at the lie of the land. Then Buckley and 
I settled down to get our operation orders for the night. 
For half an hour we sat on the edge of the wood, waiting 
for it to become quite dark before we started. 

Eighteenth and Last Night— It was quite dark at 10.15 
when we started, and we had one and three-quarter hours 
in which to cross. Shortly after midnight the moon would 
rise. "I can hardly believe we are really going to get 
across," said Buckley. "I know I am, and so are you," 
I answered. We left our sticks behind, because they would 
interfere with our crawling, and rolled our Burberrys 
tightly on our backs with string. 

A quarter of an hour's walk brought us to the railway 
and the road, which we crossed with the greatest care. Eor 
a short distance in the water-meadow we walked bent 
double, then we went on our hands and knees, and for the 
rest of the way we crawled. There was thick long grass 
in the meadow, and it was quite hard work pushing our 
way through it on our hands and knees. The night was an 
absolutely still one, and as we passed through the grass 



228 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

it seemed to us that we made a swishing noise that must 
be heard for hundreds of yards. 

There were some very accommodating dry ditches, which 
for the most part ran in the right direction. By crawling 
down these we were able to keep our heads below the level 
of the grass nearly the whole time, only glancing up from 
time to time to get our direction by the poplars. After 
what seemed an endless time, but was actually about three- 
quarters of an hour, we reached a road which we believed 
was patrolled, as it was here that I had seen the flash of 
a bayonet in the day time. 

After looking round cautiously we crossed this, and 
crawled on — endlessly, it seemed. 

Buckley relieved me, and took the lead for a bit. Then 
we changed places again, and the next time I looked up 
the poplars really did seem a bit nearer. 

Then Buckley whispered to me, "Hurry up, the moon's 
rising." I looked back towards the east, and saw the 
edge of the moon peering over the hills. We were still 
about 100 yards from the stream. We will get across now, 
even if we have to fight for it, I thought, and crawled on 
at top speed. Suddenly I felt a hand on my heel, and 
stopped and looked back. Buckley pointed ahead, and 
there, about 15 yards off, was a sentry walking along a 
footpath on the bank of the stream. He appeared to have 
no rifle, and had probably just been relieved from his post. 
He passed without seeing us. One last spurt and we were 
in the stream (it was only a few feet broad), and up the 
other bank. "Crawl," said Buckley. "Bun," said I, 
and we ran. After 100 yards we stopped exhausted. "I 



•WURTEMBERG TO THE FRONTIER 229 

believe we've done it, old man," I said. "Come on," said 
Buckley, "we're not there yet." For ten minutes we 
walked at top speed in a semicircle, and at length, hit a 
road which I knew must lead to Barzheim. On it, there 
was a big board on a post. On examination this proved to 
be a boundary post, and we stepped into Switzerland, 
feeling a r happiness and a triumph such, I firmly believe, 
as few men even in this war have felt, though they may 
have deserved the feeling many times more. 

We crossed into Switzerland at about 12.30 a.m. on 
the morning of June .9 th, 1917. 



CHAPTER XIX 



FKEEDOM 



THE moon had risen by now, and a walk of two or 
three hundred yards brought us into the village, 
which we entered without seeing any one. It was 
quite a small place, and though nearly 1 o'clock there were 
several houses in which lights were showing. "I suppose 
we really are in Switzerland," said Buckley. I felt certain 
about it, and we determined to knock up one of the houses 
in which we saw lights burning, as food we must and 
would have without delay. We were standing in a small 
cobbled square, and just as we were selecting the most 
likely looking house we caught sight of two men who were 
standing in a dark spot about 30 yards away. I called 
out to them in German, "Is this Barzheim?" "Jawohl" 
was the answer. "Are we in Switzerland?" Again, 
"Jawohl." "Well, we are escaping prisoners-of-war from 
Germany and we are very hungry." The two fellows, 
whom we saw to be boys of sixteen or seventeen, came up. 
We were very much on our guard and ready for trouble, 
for we believed then, though I do not know with what 
justice, that the Germans have agents on the Swiss side 
of the border who misdirect escaped prisoners so that they 

walk back into Germany, or even forcibly deliver them to 

230 



FKEEDOM 231 

the German sentries. "Escaped prisoners, are you ?" said 
one of the young men. "Yes," I said, "Englishmen." 
They showed some interest. "We are English officers, 
and we want food very badly." "Come on," they said, 
and led us to a house at the corner of the square. Then 
we sat on a wooden bench, and they lit a candle and had 
a look at us. 

We repeated our desire for food, and they cross- 
quesitioned us and tried us with a word or two of English. 
They were much interested in the fact that we were Eng- 
lish officers, as no Englishmen had crossed before at that 
place. 

Concerning the rest of that night my memory rather 
fails me, but soon the whole household was roused' — 
father, mother, and daughter. Wine, beer, and milk were 
produced; also bread, and cold bacon and three fine eggs 
each. We ate everything there was, and I think cleaned 
out the family larder, whilst the family sat round and 
questioned us, and were much surprised to find that two 
English officers could speak German. They could not 
possibly have been kinder or more friendly, and absolutely 
refused to take money from us. They were delighted to 
be our hosts and show themselves good neutrals, they said. 
As we had visions of hot baths, sheets, and breakfast in 
bed, we expressed our intention of going on to Schafhausen 
that night, but the father rather shocked us by saying that 
we must be handed over to the Swiss frontier post. The 
girl, however, tactfully added that, if we went on, we 
might easily lose our way and walk back into Germany, 



232 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

and that with the Swiss soldiers we should be perfectly 
safe. 

That decided u&, as we were both beginning to feel 
very sleepy after the food and wine. 

Soon afterwards one of the boys took us across to the 
guardhouse, where soldiers provided us with mattresses 
and we fell asleep instantly. 

At an early hour next morning the soldiers brought us 
hot water and shaved us and bound up my feet. They 
were extraordinarily good to us, and, after we had had 
coffee and bread, they filled our pockets with cigars and 
cigarettes and sent us off with the best wishes and a guide 
to the station about 2 kilometres away. The road passed 
quite close to the German frontier, and we felt glad that 
we had not tried to pass that way the night before. We 
soon found that our guide was really a plain-clothes police 
officer, and that, though the fact was tactfully concealed, 
we were still under arrest. However, "What does it 
matter ?" we said. "Food is the main thing now, and we'll 
escape from any old prison in Switzerland, if it comes 
to that." Our "guide" seemed a very decent fellow, and 
told us that we were about to travel on a German railway. 
We halted abruptly whilst he explained at some length that, 
though it was a German-owned railway, the Germans had 
no rights over the Swiss traffic on the railway, and that 
under no circumstances could we be arrested by the Ger- 
mans when on that bit of their railway which ran through 
Switzerland. More or less satisfied, we went on again. 
In the village we entered a pub, rather against our guide's 
will, and had some more coffee and bread. It was wonder- 



FREEDOM 233 

f ul how mucli stronger we felt owing to the food. Buckley, 
when he had stripped to wash that morning, had shown 
himself to be a living skeleton, and I was not much fatter. 

Whilst in the pub a fat dirty fellow came and con- 
gratulated us, and questioned us in bad English. I have 
no doubt now that he was a German agent, and I think 
we were rather injudicious in our answers, but we had 
sense enough to hold our tongues about the important 
points — when we crossed, and how, etc. 

The railway journey to Schafhausen was rather amus- 
ing. It was so very obvious that we were escaped prison- 
ers, as we still had on service tunics, and, except for that 
portion of- our faces which had been scraped with a razor, 
we were filthily dirty from head to foot. Our clothes were 
covered with mud, with thick pads of it on our knees and 
elbows where we had crawled the night before, and our 
faces and hands covered with sores and swellings from 
unhealed scratches and insect bites. 

Several German railway officials gave us a first glance 
of surprise and indignation, and thereafter were careful 
not to look in our direction. Considering the temptations 
of the situation we behaved on the whole very decently, 
but even the mildest form of revenge is sweet. 

At Schafhausen our guide or keeper took us to the police 
and secret service headquarters' and introduced us to a 
Swiss Lieutenant who spoke alternately German and 
French, with a preference for the former. He told us 
that we would be lodged at Hotel something or other, 
and would be sent down to Berne on Monday, that day 
being Friday. I thanked him, and said that we wished to 



234 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

get on the telephone to a friend in the English Embassy 
at Berne, and we should much prefer to go down that 
afternoon. As for waiting in Schafhausen till Monday, 
it was out of the question. 

He had a great struggle to put it with the utmost polite- 
ness, but his answer came to this. He did not see how it 
could be arranged, and we had no option in the matter; 
we should be extremely comfortable, etc. We answered 
firmly, but politely, that we had 7 not got out of Germany 
to be confined in Schafhausen, and that there was a train 
at 3 o'clock which would suit us. 

Just at this moment a Swiss major came in. The lieu- 
tenant introduced us, and I appealed to him to allow 
us to go to Berne that day. After some argument he 
suddenly gave in, and ordered the lieutenant to take us 
to Berne by the 3 o'clock train. Then turning to us he 
said, with a charming smile, "Come and lunch with me 
before you go." We then walked round the town with the 
lieutenant, bought some things, and Buckley telephoned 
to H. at the Embassy. We got back late for lunch, only 
ten minutes before the train started. However, we man- 
aged to bolt four courses and half a bottle of champagne 
apiece, and just as the lieutenant, who had been prophesy- 
ing for some minutes that we should miss the train, finally 
stated that it was hopeless to try and catch it now, we got 
up and ran for it, with him lumbering behind. We just 
caught it. At Berne we were met by H., who threw up 
his hands in horror at the sight of us and bundled us 
into a closed taxi. 

At one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, we had 



FBEEDOM 235 

a most heavenly bath, and changed into beautiful clean 
clothes lent to us by H. That night H. gave a dinner in 
our honor. Buckley and I were ravenously hungry, and 
in fact for the next fortnight were quite unable to satisfy 
our appetites. But besides the good food the dinner was 
otherwise most amusing, because the German Embassy 
inhabited the same hotel and dined a few tables from us, 
and no secret was made of what we were and where we 
had come from. The next morning we had the oft- 
anticipated breakfast in bed. I ordered, by telephone from 
my bed, the largest breakfast possible, and was disgusted 
to see the moderate-sized feed which arrived, the waiter 
explaining that the amount of one breakfast was limited by 
law. I instantly ordered a second breakfast exactly like 
the first, and ate all that too. I found out afterwards 
that Buckley had employed exactly the same ruse for 
obtaining more food! 

That day we were invited to lunch by the English 
Minister, who was extremely kind, but I think rather 
astonished at our appetites. After lunch, Buckley and I 
strolled about for a bit, and then by common consent made 
for a tea-shop, where we had another good feed. In fact, 
we made pigs of ourselves in the eating line, and for the 
next fortnight or three weeks ate as much and as often 
as possible, without ever being satisfied, and, which is still 
more astonishing, without any ill effects. I suppose we 
were safeguarded by the fact that we ate good food, and 
as we were in civilized society it was scarcely possible to 
eat more than a limited amount at any one meal. 

H. lent us money, and in Berne we bought expensive 



236 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

watches and ready-made clothes, and then obtained leave 
to visit my brother and sister at Miirren. This was the 
same brother to whom I have already referred as a 
wounded prisoner-of-war. A few months before our escape 
he had been invalided out of Germany, and my sister, who 
was a trained masseuse, went out to Switzerland to look 
after him, and I believe did much useful work among the 
exchanged prisoners. H. sent us over to Miirren in the 
embassy car, a most beautiful journey all along the edge 
of the lake. At one point our car was stopped by a party 
of exchanged English officers, who, poor fellows, mostly 
keen regular soldiers, were condemned to spend the rest 
of the war in Switzerland. They wanted to hear our 
story, and were full of enthusiasm because we had scored 
off the Germans. 

At the foot of the funicular railway we met my brother 
and sister, and at Miirren itself which I had no idea was 
a camp for exchanged English soldiers, all the men turned 
out, and, headed by a wild Irishman with a huge placard 
"Welcome back from Hun-land" and a bell, gave us a 
tremendous reception, for which Buckley and I were en- 
tirely unprepared. 

This brings to an end all that is of any interest in my 
German experiences. After two very pleasant days at 
Miirren we traveled via Berne to Paris, and then by car 
to General Headquarters '(where I fear we were unable 
to give much information that was of value), and so home 
to England. 

There is one other thing I should like to say before I 
bring this story to a close. Although Buckley and I are 



FREEDOM 237 

among the few English officers who have escaped from 
Germany, there were many others who tried to escape 
more often, who took more risks, who were at least as 
skilful as we were, hut who had not the luck and conse- 
quently never tasted the fruits of success. Several died 
or were murdered in their attempts. 

In my opinion no prisoner-of-war has ever escaped with- 
out more than a fair share of luck, and no one ever will. 
However hard you try, however skilful you are, luck is 
an essential element in a successful escape. 



PART II 



CHAPTER I 

ARABS, TURKS, AND GERMANS 

THE interval between my escape from Germany, 
June 8th, 1917 and March 1918, when I had been 
for a couple of months in command of a squadron 
of bombing aeroplanes on the Palestine front, had been 
taken up with matters of great personal interest, of which 
I can give here only the barest outline. Things move so 
fast in modern war that after a year's absence I was as 
much out of date as Rip Van Winkle after his hundred 
years' sleep. There were new organizations, new tactics, 
new theories, and in my own department new types of 
aeroplanes, of power and capabilities of which we had 
only dreamed in 1916. I had to learn to fly once more, 
and went through a course of artillery observation, for I 
had every reason to hope that I should be given command 
of an artillery squadron in France. However, this was 
forbidden. The powers that be decreed that no escaped 
prisoner might return to the same front from which he 
had been captured. This ruling was afterwards altered, 
but not before I had been captured by the Turks. 

After some months spent in teaching flying in England 
and in Egypt at Aboukir, I was sent up to Palestine early 
in the year in command of a bombing squadron. I hated 

241 



242 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

bombing, and knew nothing about it; and, though I was 
very pleased with my command, the fact that I had to 
deal in bombs and not wireless rather took the gilt off 
the gingerbread. However, after the experiences of a Ger- 
man prison, the spring weather of Palestine, the compara- 
tive peacefulness of our warfare, and an almost independ- 
ent command were very, very pleasant. 

The story opens on March 19th, 1918 with a flight of 
aeroplanes flying eastward on a cloudy day, at a height of 
some 4000 feet, over the Dead Sea. Our objective was 
the station of Kutrani, on the Hedjaz Railway. There 
were five or six single-seater aeroplanes, in one of which 
I was flying, escorted by a couple of Bristol fighters. It 
was a very unpleasant day for formation flying, for not 
only was it very bumpy as we came over the mountains, 
which border the Dead Sea, but the very numerous patches 
of cloud made it both difficult and dangerous to keep at 
the right distance from one's neighbor. We lost our way 
once, but eventually found the station which was our 
objective. A train was just leaving. So I came down 
rather low and let off two of my bombs unsuccessfully 
at it, and in doing so lost the rest of the formation. Close 
by the station there was a German plane standing on an 
aerodrome which I had a shot at, and I then unloaded 
the rest of the cargo on the station itself without, as far 
as I could see, doing much damage. By this time I was 
far below the clouds, and could see no signs of the rest 
of the squadron. After cruising about for a few minutes 
I headed for home, keeping just below the clouds, and 
very soon caught a glimpse of a Bristol fighter. He saw 



AKABS, TUKKS, AND GERMANS 243 

me at the same time, and for the next twenty minutes 
we flew side by side. The country below us was of a 
greeny-brown color in the sunlight, and had the appearance 
of a great plain bounded on the west by the mountains of 
the Dead Sea, which we had to cross. In reality it was 
far from flat, as could be guessed from the occasional 
zigzags in the white tracks which connected the widely 
scattered villages. Here and there were small brown 
patches which represented plough land, and black mounds, 
which were the tents of the desert Arabs. 

I hated these long bomb raids, for the fear of recapture 
was always on me whilst I was over enemy territory. 
My nerves had suffered from the events of the previous 
three years, and it had been only by a great effort of will 
that I had forced myself to take part in expeditions far 
over the lines. Perhaps the majority of men are more 
afraid of being afraid than of anything else — and it may 
have been partly for this reason, but mainly for another 
more weighty reason, that I found myself alone in an aero- 
plane on the wrong side of the Dead Sea. However, in 
ten minutes we would cross the mountains and the Dead 
Sea, and be over comparatively friendly territory. I 
say "comparatively," because it was always a matter of 
some uncertainty whether the temptation to murder you 
and steal your kit would overstrain the good wishes of 
our noble allies. Through the clouds on my left I had 
just caught a glimpse of the ancient city of El Karak, 
when my engine sputtered badly, picked up again, and 
then banged and sputtered once more and half stopped. 
Owing to the clouds we were flying rather low, and would 



244: THE ESCAPING CLUB 

not cross the hills ahead by more than 1000 feet or so. 
I checked the instruments' and pressure, closed and then 
elowly opened the throttle, dived with the throttle opened ; 
but all to no purpose, for the engine banged and backfired, 
and we lost height and revolutions in an alarming way. 
It was an airlock or water in the petrol, and must be given 
time to clear itself. How I longed for a little more height. 
It seemed that the engine might pick up again at any 
moment, because, for a few seconds, it would give full 
power and then cut out again completely. Then I found 
myself a few feet from the ground, and had to land willy- 
nilly. The place was a ploughed field, almost flat and 
comparatively free from boulders. We did not sink in 
very much, but unfortunately the wheels came to rest in 
a little ditch a few inches deep. 

For a moment or two I sat in the machine altering the 
throttle, for the engine had not completely stopped. Then 
I heard a roar, and the Bristol fighter came by, flying a 
few feet from the ground, and I could see the observer 
waving to me. I jumped out and tried to wave them 
away. It was possible, but risky, for a machine to land 
and get off from that ground, and, with the hope that 
my engine would pick up again, I did not think the 
risk was justifiable. However, they had no intention of 
leaving me in the lurch, and after another turn round 
landed on the plough about 50 yards away. I got into 
my machine once more, and as they ran across towards 
me my engine started once more to give its full power ; but 
I saw that I .should have great difficulty in getting out of 
the ditch. When they came up I recognized them as two 



AEABS, TUEKS, AND GEEMANS 245 

most stout-hearted Australians, Captain Austin and Lieu- 
tenant Lee, who had both gained the Military Cross, and 
made a considerable reputation for themselves on the 
Palestine front. They hauled on the machine whilst I 
roared the engine. All in vain, however; we could not 
shift her. I shouted to them that we must set this plane 
on fire and try to get away on theirs. "Ours is useless," 
they answered. "We broke a wheel on a boulder in land- 
ing." "Is it quite hopeless ?" I said. "Yes, quite." 

Leaving them to set my machine on fire, I took a re- 
volver and a Verey's pistol and ran over to the Bristol. 
As I went I saw that, from some rising ground about 100 
yards away, thirty or forty Arabs were covering us with 
rifles. Hoping they would not shoot, I went on and fired 
first the revolver and then the Verey's right into the petrol 
tank, and it burst into flame. We soon had the other 
machine on fire by the same means, and threw into the 
flames our maps and papers. A brief consultation decided 
us that escape was quite hopeless. The Arabs could travel 
over that country much faster than we could. There were 
very rugged hills between us and the Dead Sea, with pos- 
sibly or probably an impassable precipice. We thought 
there was just a chance that the Arabs were friendly as 
they had not yet fired. At any rate, it was highly prob- 
able that they would be open to bribery. If they were 
definitely hostile it was a bad look-out, and a speedy death 
was about all we could hope for. It was disturbing to 
recall, as Lee did, in a grimly humorous tone, that we 
had dropped bombs on El Karak and done considerable 
damage there only the week before. However, to run was 



246 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

certain death, so we waved to the Arabs and walked 
towards them. 

The Arabs rose with a shout, and brandishing their 
rifles rushed towards us. Several of them taking hold of 
us led us or rather dragged us along. Filthy, evil-looking, 
evil-smelling brutes they were. They were mostly clad in 
dirty white linen garments, with bandoliers and with belts 
stuck full of knives and revolvers. Some had German 
rifles, but most of them had old smooth bores which fire 
a colossal soft-lead bullet. To be man-handled by these 
savages was most repulsive. We kept together as far as 
possible and Lee, who knew a few words of Arabic, tried 
to make them understand that we could give them large 
sums of gold if they would take us to the English. 
Whether they intended to help us and whether they were 
friendly we could not make out, for they jabbered and 
shouted and pulled us along, so that we had little oppor- 
tunity for making ourselves understood, though Lee kept 
hard at it. He gave a hopeful report, however, based on 
their constant repetition of the word "Sherif," and the 
fact that they had not yet cut our throats nor robbed us 
to any great extent. Lee had his wrist-watch stolen, and 
I think Austin lost a cigarette case. I produced a very 
battered old gun-metal case, and after lighting a cigarette 
handed the rest round to our escort, hoping this would 
help to create a benevolent atmosphere. After walking a 
couple of miles in this way, the Arabs keeping up a 
ceaseless and deafening chatter the whole time, we came 
to a tumbledown deserted mud and stone village. I found 
myself separated from the other two, and I and my escort 



ARABS, TURKS, AND GERMANS 247 

came to a halt before a half -underground mud hovel with 
a black hole for an entrance, through which it would have 
been necessary to crawl. It was conveyed to me by signs 
that I was to enter, and they dragged me forward. I 
resisted, and heard Lee, who was about 30 yards away 
with his crowd of ruffians, shouting to me, "Don't let them 
get you in there, Evans-; try and get back to us." The 
attitude of the brutes round me became very threatening, 
and one fellow made preparation to encourage me with a 
bayonet. Suddenly a horseman came galloping over the 
brow, and the horse putting his foot on one of the large 
flat stones which abound in this country came down with 
a crash and horse and rider rolled over and over like shot 
rabbits. As the horse rose the rider mounted him and 
again came on at full speed. Whether it was the appear- 
ance of this horseman, or whether, as I believe, a report 
of the approach of the Turks from El Karak, which caused 
the Arabs to change their tactics, I don't know, but they 
suddenly ceased trying to force me into the black hole, 
and we joined the others. I have never been quite sure 
whether they had intended to murder me for my kit, or 
to save me for ransom to the English. Lee had no doubts 
as to what my fate would have been, and thanked God 
for my escape. 

After we had walked for another mile or two we were 
met by two Turks, who had the appearance of military 
policemen, and another crowd of Arabs. In answer to a 
question, one of the Turks who spoke Erench said that 
we were prisoners of the Turks, and added that we need 
not now be frightened. Erom what the Turk said then, 



248 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

and subsequently, we began to realize bow lucky we were 
still to be alive. However, tbere was still considerable 
cause for anxiety. All tbe Arabs and we three sat down 
in a ring, and one of tbe Turks addressed tbe assembly 
at length. There was a good deal of heckling, but at last 
they arrived at some decision, though by no means unan- 
imously. We were mounted on horses, and, with the two 
Turks also mounted and a bodyguard of some thirty Arab 
horsemen, proceeded towards El Karak. All around were 
a mob of unpleasantly excited Arabs yelling and shouting 
and letting off their rifles. The Turk who spoke French 
told usi to keep close to him, and hinted that we were not 
yet out of the wood. 

El Karak is built on a pinnacle of rock which rises 
abruptly from the bottom of a deep gorge. To reach the 
town from any side it is necessary to descend nearly 400 
feet into the gorge down a most precipitous path of loose 
etones 1 , and then climb by a track even steeper and stonier 
in which there are seven zigzags to the citadel, which is 
almost on a level with the rim of the gorge. In the valley, 
at the foot of the pinnacle, there was a very heated dispute 
between the Turks and the Arabs. Eor ten minutes or 
more, whilst our fate hung in the balance, we sat on a 
boulder and watched. Once more the decision appeared to 
be in our favor; and, after a further dispute, this time 
rather to our dismay, between the two Turks, we climbed 
the path in the midst of a strong bodyguard of the least 
excitable of the Arabs. At the gates of the town we were 
met by a dense and hostile crowd and, at the bidding of 
one of the Turks, linked our arms and pushed our way 



AEABS, TURKS, AND GERMANS 249 

through. One fellow clutclied me and but for our linked 
arms would have pulled me into the mob, but with the 
help of Lee and Austin I got free from him, and with a 
push and a scramble we got into the citadel — the only 
solidly built building in the place. Here the two Turks 
heaved sighs of relief, mopped their brows, and congratu- 
lated us heartily on being in safety. It had been a very 
close thing they said. 

To my astonishment we were treated with the greatest 
consideration. Food and coffee and cigarettes were 
brought to us, and shortly afterwards we were brought 
into the presence of Ismali Kemal Bey, the Turkish com- 
mandant and military governor of El Karak. In my 
life I have met with few people with whom, on so short 
an acquaintance, I have been so favorably impressed as I 
was with Ismali Kemal Bey. He was a finely built man, 
with a most intelligent face and a charming smile. He 
had been wounded thirteen times he told us, seven times 
in the Balkan wars and six times in this war, and had 
been a prisoner in the hands of the Greeks, by whom he 
had been disgracefully maltreated. His right arm was 
completely paralyzed. As had been agreed between us, 
I gave my name as Everard, for I feared that, if it was 
discovered that I had escaped from a German prison, a 
closer guard would be kept upon me, and life otherwise 
made more intolerable. I realized that this would lead 
to certain difficulties with regard to informing my people 
that I was still alive, and obtaining money by cheque or 
otherwise, as I selected a new name quite' on the spur of 



250 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

the moment; but I had to take that risk, and henceforth 
for the rest of my captivity I was known as Everard. 

"Whilst we were Kemal Bey's prisoners we were his 
honored guests, and he treated us with the tactful courtesy 
of a well-educated gentleman. That evening we dined 
with him, and were given under the circumstances a most 
remarkably good dinner. He spoke both German and 
French fluently, and I talked with him for two hours 
or more on a great variety of topics. He told us we owed 
our lives, to two things. Firstly, a reward of 50 gold 
pieces which was offered by the Turkish Government to 
the Arabs for live English officers, and secondly, to the 
fact that the Arabs knew that he (Kemal Bey) would cer- 
tainly have hung half a dozen of them if they had 
murdered us. Even so, although he had sent his men 
with all speed he had scarcely hoped to bring us in alive. 

That afternoon we watched two of our aeroplanes 
searching for us. Kemal Bey was much impressed by 
the loyalty of the Flying Corps to one another, especially 
when I told him that Lee and Austin had been captured 
only because they had descended, most gallantly, to rescue 
me. 

Next morning we left El Karak with a small escort and 
rode to Kutrani, the town which we had bombed the day 
before. The distance is about 45 kilometres. It was a 
most tedious and boring journey, and we were very tired 
when we got in. We slept that night in a tent, and next 
day departed by train for Aman. We were traveling 
in a closed cattle truck, and, as it was a hot night, our 
guards left the door open a foot or two. From the time 



ARABS, TURKS, AND GERMANS 251 

it was dusk till midnight, when the opportunity had passed, 
I waited in a state of the highest tension for a reasonable 
chance to jump from the train and make my way to our 
forces in the neighborhood of Jericho. Though several 
times I was on the point of going, a real chance never 
came. Although I pretended to sleep, one or other of my 
guards, usually only one, was always awake and watching 
me. We reached Aman in the early morning. During 
the day we were cross-questioned by a German Intelligence 
officer. I had told Austin and Lee what to expect, and 
I don't think he got much change out of any of us. I 
was surprised at his knowledge of our forces, and espe- 
cially when he showed that he knew or guessed of the pres- 
ence of two divisions which had lately come from 
Mesopotamia. 

That night the Turks took special precautions to prevent 
us from escaping, but nevertheless treated us quite well, 
giving us overcoats and at our request a pack of cards. 

At Aman we learnt that we were to be sent to the 
German aerodrome at El Afule. The journey lasted, as 
far as I remember, four or five days, as the route is a most 
circuitous one and brought us across the Jordan to within 
about 40 miles from our lines and the same distance from 
the coast. As soon as we learnt where we were going we 
made up our minds that it must be from Afule we would 
make our attempt to escape. We left Aman in a com- 
paratively clean cattle truck, but the conditions gradually 
became worse, and we finished the journey in a truck filled 
to the roof, all but 2 feet, with vermin-infested maize. We 
were consequently covered with lice. The food consisted 



252 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

of a very small portion of poor bread, olives, and semi- 
raw meat which the Turkish N.C.O. who was in charge 
of us tore in pieces for us with his dirty hands. Owing 
to the food and to lack of exercise we suffered severely 
from indigestion and diarrhcea, so that when we arrived 
at El Afule we were a pretty miserable trio. 

In the red crescent tent, where we were deposited with 
a sentry to guard us, there were 6 inches of liquid mud 
on the floor, for there had been heavy rain lately, and it 
started to rain again once more. So we sat on the beds 
to keep out of the mud ; and in that dripping tent, for it 
leaked in innumerable places, cursed the Turks and their 
damnable inefficiency. We had been sitting there half an 
hour or so, very miserable, when several German flying 
officers entered the tent. After rather formal salutations 
we told them what we thought of their allies' the Turks, 
and of our treatment by them. One of the Germans then 
told me that they were going to try and rescue us from the 
Turks and take us up to their mess for a feed and a bath, 
and we felt much cheered at the thought. Through an 
interpreter they tackled the Turkish sentry ; but, as he had 
had his orders that we were not to move, arguing with 
him was just waste of time. The next move amused us 
a great deal. One of the Germans wrote a note and, 
without the sentry noticing, gave it to his orderly, who 
departed. Ten minutes later the orderly reappeared and, 
saluting violently, handed the note to our would-be rescu- 
ers. The note purported to come from the German Head- 
quarters, I think, and was an order for us to be handed 
over to the Germans. This was explained at great length 



ARABS, TURKS, AND GERMANS 253 

to the sentry, but made no impression on him whatever. 
Quite rightly he refused to let us go. However, the Ger- 
mans motioned us to come too, and we all moved out of 
the tent in a body. The sentry was in two minds as to 
whether to shoot or not, hut he could not hit us without 
shooting ,a German, so he just followed after. From the 
station we walked about 2 miles up to a farmhouse, and 
were introduced into the mess, the faithful sentry taking 
up his watch outside the door, disregarding the jeers of the 
German orderlies and hints that his presence was undesir- 
able. I still feel a great admiration for that sentry. His 
blind adherence to the letter of his orders under most 
testing circumstances is typical of the best breed of 
Turkish soldier. In the mess, the Germans, who were 
mostly quite young and seemed a very nice lot of fellows, 
were extremely hospitable and kind. We begged for a 
bath, but they said a bath would be no use to us. We were 
"verloust," and would be introduced to a de-lousing ma- 
chine the next day. The commander of the squadron was 
Hauptmann Franz Walz, who for a long time had been 
a fighting pilot on the West front and had been O.C. 
Boelche's circus after the latter's death. He had a great 
admiration for the R.F.C., but thought that we had lost 
a great many machines from recklessness, and owing to 
mad expeditions on bad machines. In answer to a question 
as to which was. the most dangerous front on which to fight, 
he said that the English front was vastly more dangerous 
than any other. The English and French were alone 
worth consideration as enemies in the air. The French 
fought well, with many tricks, but it was seldom that a 



254: THE ESCAPING CLUB 

Frenchman would fight if outnumbered or at a disadvan- 
tage, or over German lines. Eor an Englishman to refuse 
a fight, however, was almost unknown. If a German 
wished for a fight he had only to approach the British 
lines, when he would be attacked by any and every British 
pilot who happened to catch sight of him. 

At dinner that night Walz asked us whether we would 
mind giving our parole not to escape for so long as we 
were actually guests of his mess, as, if we would do so, 
it would be much more comfortable both for them and 
for us. We agreed to this, and consequently were not 
guarded in any way whatever. As we were having dinner 
an orderly told Walz that the Turkish officer who had 
brought us from Aman, and from whom we had been 
stolen, was waiting outside for us. Walz, to our great 
amusement, told the orderly to give the Turk a glass of 
wine and a seat in the< corner. After dinner Walz spoke 
to him and refused to give us up; so the Turk retired, 
taking the faithful sentry with him. As we had given 
our parole, I asked the Germans as a matter of courtesy 
not to try and "pump" us on military subjects, and on 
the whole they were very decent about this. They left me 
alone, but put a certain number of leading questions to 
Lee and Austin. These two, however, either referred the 
question to me for interpretation, or drew without stint 
on exceptionally fertile imaginations. They found there 
were several of the Germans with whom Lee or Austin 
had had encounters in the air during the preceding twelve 
months, and this led to some most interesting and friendly 
discussion of these fights. 



ARABS, TURKS, AND GERMAN'S 255 

The next day was spent in batting and having our 
clothes completely disinfected. Lee and Austin were 
suffering from stomach trouble and were rather weak, 
and it was many days before they recovered. Two days 
of good food and rest with the Germans put me quite 
right again, and when on the afternoon of the third day 
we left the German mess and became once more wretched 
prisoners in the hands of the Turks, I felt quite fit for 
anything and made up my mind to escape on the first 
opportunity. 

Whilst in the German mess we had written notes which 
the Germans promised to drop over the lines for us. In 
them we merely stated that we were safe and well, and 
asked that small kits might be dropped over to us, and 
signed them Lee, Austin, and Everard. Some months 
later, while prisoners at Afion-Karah-Hissar, we all three 
received bundles of clothes and necessaries, which were 
dropped from British planes and they forwarded to us. 
How valuable those clothes were to us when they came, 
only those who have been prisoners in Turkish hands can 
understand. 

The night after leaving the German mess we were im- 
prisoned in one room of a wooden hut, in which were three 
beds, a table, and a couple of rickety chairs. The window 
was barred, and outside the door three Turkish sentries 
squatted over a small fire and smoked cigarettes. Our hut 
was one of several which stood in a large compound bor- 
dered with prickly pears. There were several tents dotted 
about, and here and there little groups of men sitting or 
sleeping round fires. Around us was that untidiness and 



256 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

irregularity which is characteristic of a Turkish encomp- 
ment. Austin, Lee, and I had already discussed the direc- 
tion in which to escape, and we decided that it would be 
best to make for the coast in a southwest direction. Once 
on the coast we believed there would be little difficulty in 
making our way either through the lines or round them 
by means of wading or swimming. If we went by the 
more direct route south it would be necessary to cross 
several very precipitous ranges of hills, and the going 
would be very bad. Towards the coast there was only one 
range to cross, if we hit the right route, and after that 
it would be more or less flat walking — a great considera- 
tion for tired men. 



CHAPTEE II 



ONE MORE RUN" 



THE night after we had left the German mess, both 
Lee and Austin were so ill from stomach trouble 
that it was impossible for them to think of escaping. 
It was, however, in all probability the last night on which 
we should be within walking distance of our lines, so I 
determined to make the attempt by myself. Owing to the 
nature of their illness, both Lee and Austin were compelled 
to make frequent visits to the latrines, which were little 
wooden huts about 50 yards away in the middle of the 
compound. I also pretended to be ill, and went out each 
time accompanied by a sentry, who usually came with us 
the whole way; but Austin reported that one sentry had 
allowed him to get 20 yards ahead, so I made wbat prepa- 
rations I could to escape. We had no map, no compass, 
and very little food between us, but it was a starlight night, 
and I thought I could scarcely fail to hit the coast. The 
first three times I went, the sentry kept too close to me to 
permit me to escape without considerable risk of an im- 
mediate alarm, and as I hoped with luck and by a skilful 
manoeuvre to be past the outside sentries, if there were any, 
before my escape was noticed, after due delay I returned 

each time. 

257 



258 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

The fourth time I went out, the more careless of the 
three sentries came with me, and as he stopped for a 
moment to say something to his mates, I walked on quickly 
and got 20 yards ahead of him. When I came to the 
latrine, I pretended to enter the door but actually stepped 
behind the hut, and walked rapidly away, keeping the hut 
between the sentry and myself. However, I had not gone 
30 yards when he saw me. I heard him shout, so I ran. 
I think he threw a stone after me, but he did not fire. 
As a matter of fact, I must have been a very dim target 
in that light by the time he had unslung and cocked his 
rifle. I passed through a gap in the prickly pear hedge, 
and just outside saw a small tent near which several men 
were sitting round a fire. One of the camp pickets I 
thought ; but I passed without being seen and struck out, 
walking and running alternately, across the marshy valley 
of the Kishon, making to hit the coast somewhat south 
of Csesarea. At times I thought that the alarm had been 
raised behind me, and twice the barking of dogs made me 
think that I was being followed. Imagination plays one 
strange tricks under circumstances of this sort when one's 
nerves and senses are strung to the very highest pitch, 
for this escape had been by far the greatest strain on my 
nerves that I had ever experienced. It was so much worse 
than any escape in Germany, because of the long, tense 
hours while I waited for an opportunity, because I had 
to go alone, and because the risks were greater and the 
dangers and chances less calculable than in any previous 
adventure. "Qmne ignotum pro magnifico est." 

It had been just about midnight when I left the camp, 



ONE MORE RUN 259 

and it was very little after 1 o'clock when I reached the ris- 
ing ground on the west side of the valley, near the valley of 
Megiddo, after over 6 miles of very bad going. All that 
night I pressed on at top speed, avoiding the villages and 
meeting no one in that wild and desolate country. Though 
I had to cross several small valleys, most of the time I 
was climbing, and dawn found me on rather a bare ex- 
posed part on the top of the ridge from which, when day 
came, I saw the sea. It had been most difficult to pick a 
good hiding-place, as there were no trees and very few 
bushes ; and some thickish heather behind a small boulder 
was the best cover I could find. The country had appeared 
so desolate at night that I hoped to find it quite unin- 
habited in the day time, but I soon saw my mistake. From 
about 6 o'clock onwards shepherds with their flocks wan- 
dered on many of the distant hills, and a quarter of a mile 
away down in the valley there were many small patches 
of cultivation, where men were working. I made up my 
mind that if chased by Arabs in that country in daylight 
the chances of escape were nil, so I took off my boots and 
went to sleep. About 8 o'clock I woke up and saw an 
Arab with a rifle standing about 10 yards off looking at 
me. His appearance in every sense was most unexcep- 
tionally unpleasant. I nodded to him as he came up, and 
said Guien Tag, and motioned to him to sit down beside 
me. He sat down and made some unintelligible remarks 
to me, to which I answered in German, and offered him 
a cigarette. He smoked for a bit, and things seemed to 
me to be going rather well. Then he started talking again, 
and kept on repeating some words which I suddenly 



260 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

recognized as Jenin, the name of the German aerodrome 
about 4 miles away. I jumped at that and said, "Ja 
ja, Deitscher — Jenin tiara (Turkish for aeroplane) boom, 
boom," and pointed to myself, by which he was supposed 
to understand that I was a German flying man from Jenin 
aerodrome, and my natural habits were bomb dropping. 
He seemed to grasp this, and after smoking another cigar- 
ette went away over the brow of the hill, to my great 
relief. Soon after his departure I selected another hiding- 
place, about 100 yards away, and crawled into it on my 
hands and knees. Even if he had come back to look for 
me (for I thought he might put two and two together if 
he learnt during the day that a prisoner had escaped), 
I doubt if he would have found me without the help of 
a dog. 

All that day — and the day seemed endless — I lay in the 
broiling sun and suffered very greatly from thirst ; for I 
had had nothing to drink since about 2 o'clock on the 
previous night. The only food I had with me was half 
a pound of bread and about the same amount of dried 
greengages, a food much eaten by the Turkish soldiers and 
quite nourishing. However, I was far too thirsty to eat. 
During the day I saw some German aeroplanes flying 
low over the country-side, and thought that perhaps they 
were looking for me, as I found out afterwards was the 
case. Being an airman myself, I knew that their chance 
of finding me if I lay still was just nil, and watching them 
helped to pass the time. During the day I almost changed 
my mind and decided to go due south to our lines, but 



ONE MORE RUN 261 

the sight of the sea was so attractive that I determined to 
keep on in that direction. 

The next night's walk was the most terrible experience 
that I have ever had. All night, till 4.30 the next morn- 
ing, I found no water, and without water I could scarcely 
eat. Towards morning I could only breathe with diffi- 
culty, my tongue and throat seemed to have swollen, and I 
made a harsh whistling noise when I breathed. I tried 
sucking various herbs, and eventually tried the leaves of 
the cactus, which seemed to give momentary relief, so I 
put some bits of it in my pocket. The loneliness was 
oppressive past all belief and I longed for a companion, 
but the only noises were the occasional bark of a dog from 
an Arab village and the almost continual wailing of the 
jackals. The going was for the most part very bad, 
always up or down hill, and was made more difficult by 
the clouds which obscured the moon for a good part of 
the night. In one valley which I had to cross, the ground, 
for a mile or more, was strewn thickly with loose boulders, 
varying in size from a football to a grand piano. The 
boulders lay on loose shingle so that they slipped or moved 
if you stepped on them, and in the cracks and crevices 
between the boulders were thick thorn bushes. In my 
exhausted state and in the dim light, it was a nightmare 
getting through this place. I fell repeatedly trying to 
jump from one boulder to another, and my clothes were 
much torn and my face and hands were bleeding freely 
before I got out of that dreadful place. Once I collapsed, 
and as I lay on the ground I fell asleep. Half an hour 
later I woke and, feeling rather better, pushed on again. 



262 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

About 3.30 a.m. I got through the hills and on to the flat 
country which borders the coast. If I could have found 
water earlier I believe I should have reached the coast that 
night, but it was not till about 4.30 a.m. that I found a 
square hole in a rock half full of water. I drank that dry. 
A few hundred yards farther on I heard men talking, and 
going forward cautiously saw Turkish soldiers seated 
round a small fire. Making a detour, I marched on for 
half a mile and then heard a man call out on my right. 
There was only a dim light, as the moon was half hidden 
by clouds, and I could not see the man. Another man 
answered him on the left, and I realized that I was passing 
through a line of senfries. But if I could not see them 
they could not see me, so I pushed on till I suddenly saw 
a troop of cavalry advancing on me. I dropped to the 
ground and curled myself round a small bush about 2 feet 
high and lay quite still — it was the only possible thing to 
do. The cavalry came straight towards me, and it was 
not till they were 10 yards off that I saw that there was 
only one horseman and that he was driving half a dozen 
cattle before him. The cattle passed a yard or two to my 
right and left, but the horse actually stepped over my head 
without touching me. I felt most thankful when they had 
disappeared from sight, and realized that I must now be 
in the middle of a Turkish military area. However, as 
there was no hiding-place of any sort to be seen, I walked 
on once more, keeping a very careful lookout both for the 
Turks and for a hiding-place. I soon found the latter. It 
was a patch of corn about an acre in size, so I crawled into 
it and lay down in the middle, feeling fairly secure. It 



ONE MORE RUN 263 

was a great pity to lose half an hour of darkness, but I 
knew that an hour or two's walk would bring me to the 
coast, and it might be difficult to find a better hiding-place 
in that flat country. Once more I suffered a great deal 
from heat and thirst, for I found to my surprise that corn 
stalks give no shade from a sun which beats almost straight 
down. 

That evening it began to rain, and as soon as the sun 
set it became pitch dark. When it was so dark that a 
man could not be seen at 5 yards' distance I left my 
cornfield and marched due west. I had taken my bearings 
from the sun during the day, so that even if there were 
no stars I should know by landmarks in which direction 
I was walking. Soon all landmarks were blotted out by 
the inky darkness and pelting rain, and I began to realize 
that it might be possible to lose my way even when with- 
in one hour's walk of the sea. Owing to the rain the 
going was rather heavy, being mostly over cultivated land, 
and when I had been walking for half an hour I began to 
feel fearfully tired. I staggered rather than walked, and 
could scarcely put one clay-laden foot before the other. 
Quite suddenly I collapsed, and lay on the ground totally 
unable to move. I managed to put my hand over my heart 
and could feel that it was running most irregularly and 
misfiring in the most extraordinary way. After about a 
quarter of an hour it got much better, so I had a few 
mouthfuls of bread and went on again. Before long I 
came on a field of things that looked like beans. I tried 
eating them, but they seemed to clog up my throat and 
made me feel worse than before. Eor the next hour I 



264= THE ESCAPING CLUB 

guided myself by the croaking of the frogs in the marshes, 
which I knew ran parallel to the sea and only a few 
miles away from it. When I reached the marshes it had 
stopped raining, but the clouds were so dense that I could 
see no moon or stars. I had rather a struggle crossing the 
marshes, and in some places was up to my waist in mud 
and water. Once my feet almost stuck, and as I dragged 
them out the soles of both my shoes tore off the uppers. 
I bound them on again as well as I could, and then walked 
on again in the direction I thought was. right. For the 
next four hours I pushed on at a good pace, hoping against 
hope that every step would show me the sea. But it was 
not to be. My shoes were so uncomfortable that much of 
the time I went barefooted, but there were many stones 
and thistles about and I hurt my feet and made poor 
progress. At about 3 a.m. I got a glimpse of the moon 
and saw that I was walking northeast instead of west. 
Heaven knows where I was or for how long I had been 
walking in a totally wrong direction. For all I knew I 
might have walked 10 miles from the sea in the last four 
hours. Then the moon went in again and the rain came 
on. Soon after that I ran into an encampment of some 
sort and was chased by dogs ; they followed me some way 
barking, but did not attack me. Then I got tangled up in 
more marshes, and in the darkness lost my direction again 
hopelessly. 

As it began to get light I found myself near some 
quite nice-looking sitone buildings, and sitting down in an 
orchard in the pouring rain I debated what to do. I was 
very exhausted, and most dejected at my ill luck. Our 



ONE MOKE BUN 265 

lines could not be less than 18 miles away, so that even 
if I hit the coast very early the following night I should 
not cross the lines without two more nights' marching 
and still worse two more days of lying hid. I was des- 
perately hungry and my food was almost exhausted. If 
recaptured I could only expect very rough treatment, and 
I wished to keep a little strength in hand to stand that. 
Added to this, my feet were in such a condition that walk- 
ing was most painful. But that which finally made me 
decide to give myself up was that for the last two hours 
I had come across no spot which would serve as a hiding- 
place. How I longed to have Buckley with me ! If he 
had been there I think we should have encouraged each 
other to carry on for one more night at any rate. How- 
ever, I can't blame myself too much, as I was in a pretty 
hopeless position. The remembrance of the whole ad- 
venture annoys me beyond words. I was so near success. 
That last night is to me a tragedy. What is to come is 
sheer comedy. 

The house where I had made up my mind to give myself 
up was a square stone two-storied building with a wooden 
veranda along one side. It was surrounded by a high 
wall in which there was an iron gate. Finding the gate 
shut, I turned my attention to a wooden outbuilding, 
in one of the windows a faint light was showing. I 
banged on the door, and after a minute or two it was opened 
by a small dark man in trousers and shirt and bare feet. 
He appeared rather frightened, and said some words which 
I did not understand. I tried him in German, saying 
that I wanted shelter and food. As I had had practically 



266 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

nothing to eat for sixty hours, and was drenched to the 
skin, he had no difficulty in guessing what I wanted, if he 
did not understand. He went back into the room and 
put on some boots and a coat. The room seemed almost 
completely bare except for a number of people who were 
sleeping, rolled in blankets, on the floor or on very low 
beds. Soon the man came out again and shouted towards 
the house in a language which I guessed to be Hebrew, 
as there was no mistaking his nationality. After much 
shouting a man of a most pronounced Jewish type came 
to the gate. We had some difficulty in understanding each 
other, as he spoke a thick and almost incomprehensible 
German. He wanted to know who I was and what I 
wanted, and when he learnt, much to his surprise, was 
most unwilling to have anything to do with me. The 
prospect of immediate food and shelter made me quite 
callous about the more remote future, so I said he could 
send for the Turks in the morning if he would only take 
me in for the night. At that he opened the gate and 
beckoned to me to follow him. After mounting some 
wooden steps outside the house to the balcony he brought 
me into a room which stank most horribly of stale human- 
ity and garlic. The room was quite bare except for two 
beds and a sort of couch, on which men were lying rolled 
in blankets. They gave me some incredibly disgusting 
cold rissoles, mainly made of garlic, which nearly made 
me sick ; but I managed to eat two or three of them. In 
this extraordinary household they all appeared to go 
to bed in their day clothes, and looked and smelt as if 
they had never washed from the day they were born. I 



ONE MOKE RUN 267 

think they meant to be kind to me, but they were very 
frightened and miserably poor in food and utensils of 
every sort. They made signs to me to lie on a bed which 
one of them vacated, so I took off most of my wet clothes 
and fell asleep instantly. 

I was awakened from my sleep abruptly by the blankets 
being torn off my bed. A nasty-looking Arab, in a uni- 
form of a Turkish officer, was standing close to me bran- 
dishing a revolver. A few feet away was a Turkish 
sentry, and in the background the Jews huddled together 
in the corner. The Arab took hold of my wrist and tried 
to pull me out of bed. That made me mad with anger, 
so I shook him off and damned his eyes, whereupon he 
presented the revolver at my head. So I took hold of 
myself and, obeying signs from him, got out of bed and 
began to dress into my wet things. Seeing me more docile 
he lowered the revolver and, seizing his opportunity, 
patted me on the head to show there was no ill feeling. 
My resentment at this was so obvious that he produced 
the revolver again, but thereafter kept his distance. My 
feet and my shoes were in such a condition that it was 
clear that I should have great difficulty in walking. I 
pointed this out to him and, whether at his order or out 
of kindness — the latter, I think — one of the Jews brought 
me a pair of old boots. Though the Jews had immediately 
sent word to the Turks, I feel no violent resentment 
towards them, as they were obviously frightened out of 
their skins at my presence in the house. In other ways 
I think they did their best for me, and were sorry for me ; 



268 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

owing to their extreme poverty they could not do much. 
I suppose they just had licence to live from the Turks, and 
that's about all. Even at the time most men would have 
preferred infinitely to take my chances of life and treat- 
ment rather than live under the conditions in which these 
Jews were living. Poor brutes ! But then I had the same 
feeling about every Turkish soldier. Perhaps that is why 
the Turks are so callous of life. They live so close to 
the borderland where life becomes intolerable that it can 
mean little to them to die. Just before we marched off 
the Jews gave me some more of their disgusting meat, and, 
when I reproached them for sending for the Turks so 
soon, they answered that they were terrified and could 
not help it. When we had gone a few hundred yards 
from the house I saw suddenly that my wrist-watch was 
missing. I made the Arab understand this by signs, 
and let him know that I wanted to go back and fetch it. 
He refused, and when I showed signs of obstinacy began to 
finger his revolver. So we continued the march. I made 
sure then that the brute had stolen it. 

It was a beautifully fine morning, very fresh and 
pleasant after the rain, and though my feet hurt me I was 
much refreshed by the food and sleep. As I knew from 
experience, alas ! it was not till later that I should feel the 
full bitterness of failure. 

When we had gone about a mile we came on a sentry 
standing beside the path. The Arab called to him and he 
came up, a poor miserable underfed brute, and stood stiffly 
to attention. Apparently the soldier had failed to arrive 
in time to assist in my arrest. A few words passed, and 



ONE MOKE RUN 269 

then the Arab hit him half a dozen blows in the face with 
his hand. The man winced at each blow but remained at 
attention, and then fell in behind. To see an unresisting 
man hit in this way is a horrible and demoralizing sight, 
and I felt quite literally sick with rage. A little farther 
on a second sentry was treated in exactly similar fashion. 
A walk of a little over half an hour, through comparatively 
well-cultivated country, brought us to the Jewish colony, 
the village of Hedera. There were many evidences that 
this colony had been a flourishing and pleasant little place 
in times of peace. The houses were of wood or stone, 
pretty and well built, and most of them stood in their own 
gardens and there were many signs that a more civilized 
race than the Turks or Arabs had been in occupation. 
In an airy bungalow I was introduced to Ahmed Haky 
Bey, Turkish commandant of the place. He gave me a 
seat as well as coffee, brandy, and unlimited cigarettes. A 
Turk, who spoke French, acted as interpreter, and seemed 
particularly anxious to impress upon me that the Turks 
were not barbarians. First of all, I had to be identified. 
There was some difficulty about this, as the description 
of me which apparently had been circulated did not tally 
'in the slighest degree with the original. However, they 
had little difficulty in accepting me as the "wanted" man, 
though the commandant said he felt a little aggrieved that 
I had no points of resemblance whatever to my official 
description. I was treated by him with great consider- 
ation and, after he had questioned me, more from curiosity 
than for official reasons, he asked me if I wanted anything, 
I answered that I wished to sleep and then to eat. 



270 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

I was led by the interpreter to a very small room in 
which there was a bed and blankets. He was most anxious 
to impress me with the generous and civilized way in which 
I was being treated. "And yet," he said, "all English- 
men say that Turks are barbarians, don't they?" "Ah 
no," I answered, "only those who have not come into close 
contact with the Turks may have a false opinion of them." 
"Then you do not now think the Turks barbarians ?" 
"Since I have been a prisoner in their hands I have com- 
pletely changed my mind." As a matter of fact, in pre- 
war days I always imagined the Turks to be rather good 
fellows. I had already changed my mind, and I was 
soon to be quite converted. The Turkish official is as 
corrupt, cruel, unscrupulous, and ignorant as any class 
on earth. That some of them have a thin or even fairly 
thick coating of European civilization only makes them 
in my opinion the more odious. I came across a few — a 
very few — who seemed notable exceptions, but that may 
have been because I did not have time or opportunity to 
penetrate the outer coating of decency. 

During this conversation I took off most of my clothes, 
which were still very wet, and got into bed and soon fell 
asleep. When I awoke the room was crammed with 
people, who had come to look .at me. I counted sixteen 
at one time in that tiny room. Women came as well as 
men, and I was subjected to a hail of questions, either 
through the interpreter or by those who could speak Ger- 
man or French. One of the Jews who had been my host 
a few hours before came in and, seizing an opportunity, 
whispered to me in German, "We did not take it ; he did," 



<0NE MOKE EUN 271 

indicating the Turkish officer who had captured me. I 
knew he was referring to my watch, and determined to 
complain to the commandant. The whole position was 
most undignified, hut I did not see how I could help it. 
After all, I was being treated with a crude and barbarous 
generosity which was rather astonishing. 

About midday I was given food, and then brought once 
more before the commandant. He was standing outside 
his bungalow surrounded by a number of Turks and half 
the population of the village, and made a speech to me, 
which appeared to be most pleasant, and I gathered that 
he was complimenting both himself and me on the signal 
proof that had been afforded me that the Turks were not 
barbarians. Both he and his interpreter had "barbarian" 
on the brain. When he had finished I took the opportunity 
of stating that someone had stolen my watch, and added, 
very unwisely as I soon discovered, that I rather suspected 
his officer. This was something of an anti-climax. How- 
ever, he soon recovered himself, and gave me a hasty 
promise that he would investigate the matter. I aban- 
doned all hope of seeing my watch again. 

• ••••••• 

The journey from Hedera to Tulkeram was made on 
horseback. To my disgust I found that the same Turk 
who had arrested me, and whom I had just accused pub- 
licly of stealing my watch, was to be my escort. The 
officer and I were mounted, but we were accompanied by 
two Turkish soldiers on foot, and I was astonished at the 
way these men kept up with us. In spite of rifles and 
ammunition and heavy clothes, and in spite of the heat, 



272 THE ESCAPING CLUB . 

these men kept up a speed of quite six or seven miles an 
hour for the first six miles of the journey. After that 
the Turk deliberately left them behind; keeping just 
behind me he urged my horse into a canter, which we kept 
up till we were well out of sight. By this time I had 
made absolutely certain that the brute intended to murder 
me, and my anxiety was not lessened when he drew a 
large revolver and had pot shots at various objects by the 
wayside. Of course he would have a simple and satis- 
factory excuse for shooting me, by saying that I had at- 
tempted to escape. About half a mile ahead, in the 
otherwise flat plain, were 'two very low ridges which hid 
the path we were following from almost all sides, and I 
felt that it would be here that the deed would be done, and 
I began to think out a plan for attacking him first and 
then escaping in earnest. At the best, however, the situa- 
tion seemed to me pretty serious. Of course I may have 
misjudged him, but I still believe he intended to murder 
me. Just as we were crossing the first low ridge a small 
caravan came round the corner. I breathed a prayer of 
thanksgiving, and my Turk put away his revolver and 
drew his horse up alongside of mine. For the rest of the 
way we were, to my great relief, and as luck would have 
it, never out of sight of human beings for more than a few 
minutes at a time. However, as I said before, I may have 
misjudged the fellow. 

At a village a few miles north of Tulkeram we halted to 
water our horses, and while we were sitting there eating 
some food 1 we had brought with us a German officer and 
his orderly rode by. The German caught sight of me, and 



ONE MORE RUN 273 

coming across asked me in German if I was the English, 
flying captain who had attempted to escape. When I 
answered in the affirmative he told me that I should not be 
long a prisoner as the war would be over in three months. 
"Why do you say that?" I asked. "Because," said he, 
"our armies have been completely victorious in France." 
At my request he gave me some details of the places that 
had been captured, and added that to all intents and 
purposes the war was over, and asked me what I thought 
of it. I said that I did not put any reliance on German 
communiques, but that if it was true it looked as if the 
war would last another four years. He left me feeling 
rather miserable at the way things might be going in 
France. I hated that German, so damned condescending 
and superior. No man with any instincts of a gentleman 
would have gloried over an unfortunate prisoner as he had 
done. 

About the rest of the journey to Tulkeram there is 
nothing to add. I was received there by the very worst 
and most unpleasant type of superficially civilized Turk, 
and by a gruff and, I should think, efficient German in- 
telligence officer. After some questioning, I was put into 
the charge of a Turkish officer of the intolerably stupid 
type, with whom I very soon lost my temper completely. 
He deposited me in a cell in what I imagine was the civil 
prison. A sentry was left in the cell with me, whose 
presence and dirty habits annoyed me beyond words. 

By one of those amazing incongruities, possible where 
the Turk rules and nowhere else, I found in a corner of 
the cell three very fine new eiderdowns, and with these 



274 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

made myself a comfortable bed and went to sleep. I was 
awakened some hours later by three English Tommies 
being brought into the cell. One of them was badly 
wounded in the arm just above the elbow. The wound 
obviously needed dressing, so after five exasperating min- 
utes I managed to convey to the sentry that I insisted on 
seeing an officer immediately. When the same fool of 
an officer turned up, his dense, imperturbable stupidity 
nearly drove me mad. At length I turned my back on 
him and lay down once more in my corner. When a man 
has been starving he cannot satisfy his hunger at one meal, 
and I was now desperately hungry. The strain through 
which I had lately passed was as much nervous as. physical, 
and it had left me so irritable that I sometimes think that 
I could not have been quite sane during that intolerable 
never-to-be-forgotten three weeks' train journey to Con- 
stantinople. I lost my temper daily, and several times a 
day. But then the Turks are an irritating nation to a 
prisoner with a spark of pride left in him. Even now it 
'makes me hot and angry when I think of the Turk, and 
the hatred of Turkish officialdom is branded on my soul. 

That night we, the three Tommies and I, left in a cattle 
truck on the first stage of our long journey. They gave 
me some food before we started, but no doctor came for the 
unfortunate wounded man. I protested whenever I saw 
anyone who could speak a Christian lingo, and promises 
were given by superficially civilized barbarians that it 
should be attended to. But result there was none. 

The journey to Constantinople, with breaks of a few 
days at Damascus and Aleppo, lasted, as near as I can 



ONE MOKE KUN 275 

reckon now, for about three weeks. Many of the details 
of time and place, I am almost thankful to say, I have 
forgotten; but in any case I would not tell of the journey 
in detail, not only for fear of boring anyone who has been 
kind enough to read so far, but also because the memory 
of the journey is abhorrent to me. I found out after- 
wards that my heart had been considerably displaced by 
my late exertions. I was tired, irritable, disappointed, 
and ill; continually subjected to small indignities, which 
are more unbearable than open insults ; covered with lice ; 
unable to lie down for days on end ; herded with Jews and 
civil prisoners, and ordered about by a Turkish gendarme 
or "dog collar" man, whose imprenetrable stupidity nearly 
drove me mad. In reality I suppose the hardships of 
this journey were not very great, and many times in the 
past had I suffered much greater privations and dis- 
comforts, but never have I experienced anything so hard 
to bear, or of which the memories are so unpleasant. 

The first or pleasantest stage of the journey, as far as 
Damascus, was made by the three Tommies and myself in 
a closed horse wagon. At any rate I had the companion- 
ship of some stout-hearted Englishmen, who bore their 
troubles nobly and showed that unselfishness and cheer- 
fulness in adversity which is perhaps the greatest asset of 
the British Tommy. The nights were very cold, and we 
slept huddled together for warmth on the bare boards of 
the filthy truck. I begged a log from the engine-driver 
as a pillow, and managed to get a good deal of sleep in 
spite of the cold. The days were pleasantly warm, and 
to a certain extent I was able to forget my troubles in the 



276 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

struggle to get food and to obtain medical aid for our 
wounded man. It was only after several days that I 
got a doctor to attend to him. I managed it at last by 
hailing some German soldiers whilst we were halted at a 
station. They promised to do their best for us, and also 
brought us good food. A little later a Turkish or Armen- 
ian doctor turned up and dressed the man's arm, fairly 
skillfully it seemed to me. He told me that the arm was in 
a bad condition, and that the man should go to a hospital 
at the earliest opportunity. I kept on trying to get medi- 
cal attention for the poor fellow, but with little result, 
until we left him behind at some wayside hospital at a 
place the name of which I have forgotten. I have never 
heard whether his arm or his life was saved. Through- 
out that journey the Germans without exception were good 
to us and did all they could for us, and meeting them, was 
like meeting civilized men in a savage land. The Ger- 
man privates several times 1 — whenever they had an oppor- 
tunity, in fact — brought us food, good hot stew, and ex- 
pressed their contempt for the Turk in no measured 
terms. 

Our escort and the other occupants of the horse truck 
were rather a grotesque crew. An Arab in full Arab 
costume seemed to be in command. He was extremely 
suspicious of me, and objected strongly when I talked to 
the Germans, which I did at every opportunity. In the 
day time, when it was futile to think of escaping, he 
watched my every movement, and at night slept peace- 
fully, often with the door a few inches open, so that a 
night seldom passed when I could not have escaped if I 



ONE MORE RUN" 277 

had wished. It was grudgingly that I was allowed some- 
times to sit in the sun or walk up and down for exercise 
at the numerous and prolonged halts. When I pointed 
out that my feet hurt me and that I had no boots on, he 
explained by signs that he suspected me the more for 
having taken off my boots, and made movements with his 
hands to show that a man could run all the faster without 
boots. That made me so angry that I nearly hit him, and 
a little later I managed to get hold of an interpreter to tell 
him that, as I could escape any night I wished to while he 
slept, he might give me a little more liberty in the day 
time when escape was hopeless. Our relations remained, 
to the end, rather strained. Then there was a big lout of 
,a Turkish sergeant, a kindly sort of fellow, whose main 
diet seemed to be raw onions, lemons, raisins, and almonds. 
There was also a particularly dirty Turkish soldier who 
was seen and smelt but not heard. The most curious 
member of the party was a filthy, ragged Arab beggar. 
He possessed only two garments, both unbelievably dirty. 
One was a coarse linen nightshirt, and the other a large 
irregularahaped piece of black cloth, which he wore over 
his shoulders in the day time, while at night, sitting 
huddled up into a small ball, he covered himself com- 
pletely with it. He had no hat, boots, stockings, money, 
or possessions of any sort. I was under the impression 
that he had been arrested as a spy by the Turks, but never 
found out for certain. He seemed to be on very 
friendly terms with my escort, and appeared to enjoy the 
journey, depending for food on bits that other people did 
not want. The Arab gave him all the liberty he wished 



278 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

for, and lie was most useful in fetching water and buying 
food for us. He was just a cheeky, cheerful, ragged street- 
arab, who seemed to know how and where to beg, borrow, 
or steal the cruder necessities of life. He seemed to take 
a special interest in me, and sometimes used to brush 
down the place where I slept with his outer garment. He 
also liked sleeping close to me, but I could not stand that, 
and, though I felt rather ungracious about it, insisted on 
him removing himself to a decent distance. Eor some 
time I thought he might be one of our spies who wished 
to communicate with me; but I don't think that was the 
case, as he could have found endless opportunities of 
speaking to me in private if he had wished to. I was very 
curious at the time to know who he was and where he was 
going, and always had a feeling that he was not quite what 
he seemed. I never found out anything about him; I 
wish I could, as I am still curious. 

After a couple of days' journey from Tulkeram we 
reached Afule, the place from which I had escaped. 
Rather an anrgy crowd collected round the carriage when 
it became known that I was there, and one or two Turkish 
soldiers put their heads in at the door and cursed me; 
for I believe the sentries from whom I had escaped had 
received rather severe punishment. I have little doubt 
that they had been cruelly bastinadoed, poor brutes. 

Some German flying men and also some Turks came to 
see me ; the former from curiosity, and the latter to' ques- 
tion me about my escape. Had I bribed the sentry ? "Of 
course not," I said, "why spend money unnecessarily? 
Any fool can get away from a Turkish sentry whenever 



ONE MORE RUN 279 

he wants to. I had had heaps of opportunities since my 
recapture, but my feet were sore and I could not walk." 
This statement gave them something to think about, the 
more especially because it coincided with statements which 
had been made by Austin and Lee when they had been 
questioned. Their statements and the belief that Austin, 
Lee, and I would repeat our opinions as to the incom- 
petence of all Turks, and especially of those at Afule, 
alone prevented, as I now feel sure, any word of my 
escape being forwarded to Headquarters. I received no 
special punishment for my escape, which is perhaps just 
as well, as I much doubt if I should have lived through it. 
Of the rest of that tedious journey to Damascus I re- 
member only a few incidents, of which the following is an 
example. At Deraah, the junction of the Damascus and 
the Mecca lines, the train halted for about ten hours and 
I was put in charge of the station-master. He was a dirty- 
looking blackguard but not so stupid as most Turks, and 
gave me to understand that he was very friendly. He 
invited me to share his lunch and we ate together, dipping 
our fingers into the same dish and fishing out lumps of 
meat. There is nothing like real true hunger to tide over 
a little squeamishness. When we had finished, he asked 
me to write him a note to say that he had been kind to 
British prisoners. He was convinced, he said, that the 
British would soon be in Damascus, and that perhaps he 
would be taken prisoner. I wrote on a piece of paper, 
"This fellow, Station-master at Deraah, gave me food when 
I was hungry — A. J. Everard," and gave it to him: I 



280 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

had been his guest, and was grateful for the meal, I 
should like to know if he ever used my chit. 

We arrived at Damascus very early one morning, and 
were marched through the streets to the courtyard of a 
hotel. They pushed the Tommies into a room absolutely 
packed with stinking, filthy, crawling human beings. 
They were mostly Turkish soldiers, military criminals I 
should think, and only once in my life, at the main jail 
at Constantinople, have I ever seen such a miserable, 
famished, filthy crowd. I absolutely refused to enter 
the room in spite of all threats, and at length they gave in, 
and put a guard over me in the courtyard. Later in the 
day all four of us were marched up to the main barracks 
and I was lodged in a room with barred windows — I call 
it a room, because it was on the second floor and had a 
wooden bedstead and a mattress in one corner, but no 
other furniture. The place was comparatively clean, and 
I might have been much worse off. I asked that the 
Tommies should be put into my room, but this was re- 
fused, though I obtained permission to visit them. They 
were in a long, narrow stone cell. The walls had at one 
time been whitewashed, but now the whole place was 
filthy. Erom the long side-wall boards sloped down to the 
center of the room, leaving a narrow gangway. The 
boards and the stone floor were filthy, and all over the 
room a thick crowd of still filthier Turks slept or played 
cards. What the place was I don't know, but it is just 
possible that it was the Turkish guardroom, though it is 
hard to credit it unless you have spent a little time in 
Turkey as a prisoner. I did what I could for our poor 



ONE MORE RUN 231 

fellows, who were wonderfully cheerful; but it was little 
I could do to make their existence a little more tolerable. 

Twice every day I was conducted by George, a miserable 
little Armenian with the fear of death on him, to a hotel 
in the town, where I had my meals with Turkish officers, 
and paid at reduced and very reasonable rates. The meals 
were quite good and satisfying. I also found a small 
library in the hotel in which there were several English 
books which I borrowed from mine host — an Armenian, 
of course. All business men of any description seem to 
be Armenians in Damascus, and they one and all seemed 
to be praying for and expecting daily and hourly the com- 
ing of the English. 

After a couple of daya in Damascus, I felt so much 
better that I began to turn my attention once more to 
escaping. I broached the matter first to some Armenians 
in the hotel, but soon saw that they were too frightened 
to be ,any use. Next I tested my conductor, George, and 
found that for years he had had the desire, but never the 
courage, to escape. I cheered him on with promises of 
prosperity if we succeeded, and two days later he told 
me that he had got into touch with some men who would 
guide us to friendly Arabs outside the town. We were 
to escape disguised in two days' time; but, when ques- 
tioned, George was unable to produce any details or any 
connected scheme of escape. I continued to press for 
details, but when the day came he went dead lame, and 
was so obviously in a blue funk that I called the matter 
off. I don't believe for a moment that he had ever made 
any arrangements for escaping. In any case I feel sure 



282 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

I was right not to trust myself "blindly to this miserable 
little cur of an Armenian. Before I had time to discover 
any more suitable conspirator — the next day, in fact — I 
was moved off by train together with the Tommies in a 
cattle truck, with about thirty other human beings, all 
as dirty and smelly as possible, and all, I have no doubt, 
covered with vermin, as I was by that time. Whilst at 
Damascus I had a good opportunity of looking round the 
town, with George as my conductor. The Arab thinks 
of Damascus and the waters of Damascus as a sort of 
heaven upon earth. Although it does not quite accord 
with my idea of heaven, the place has for me a certain 
fascination. The sight of water in plenty in a thirsty 
land is in itself a pleasant sight. The shops too are ex- 
ceptionally good for that part of the world. Altogether, 
making due allowances for the circumstances, I have quite 
pleasant recollections of Damascus. The last day I was 
there I tried to change some money, for curious as it may 
seem, I had never been robbed of my money. I was un- 
able to come to an agreement with a robber of an Armenian 
about the rate of exchange. George came in, in the midst 
of the argument, and told me that he could arrange things 
better for me. He led me by side streets to an insig- 
nificant-looking little shop and introduced me to an old 
man in rich clothing, who spoke French. This old man 
was an Armenian, with French blood in his veins, I should 
think, and offered to give me gold for my Egyptian notes. 
He refused my thanks, saying it was a small thing to 
do to help one who had risked his life on the side of the 
Allies against the Turks. 



ONE MOEE BUN 283 

Of the journey from Damascus to Aleppo I am pleased 
to say I remember absolutely nothing. We made a par- 
ticularly bad start, as I have said, being crowded at night 
with from thirty to forty nondescript human beings into 
a dirty cattle truck, so that I have no doubt it was as 
unpleasant as the rest. At Aleppo the Tommies and I 
were marched through the town to a big white stone fort 
or barracks which stands on a hill above it. Here we were 
separated, and it was not till some months afterwards 
when one of them came as my orderly at Afion that I heard 
of those good fellows again. They had had an awful 
time, but I believe survived to the end, being strong men. 
Of the fate of the founded man they knew nothing. I 
was brought up to the Commandant's private room. After 
the polite formalities of introduction, together with ciga- 
rettes and coffee, I was given a seat on a divan whilst the 
Commandant submitted himself to be shaved. When this 
operation was concluded, he politely offered me the services 
of his barber, which I gratefully accepted. Feeling much 
refreshed, I was led away and deposited in a very bare 
and unpleasant cell. Just as I was preparing to kick 
up a fearful row and give my celebrated imitation of an 
indignant demi-god by kicking at the door and cursing 
the sentry, the only method I found to be of the slightest 
use in getting food or washing materials out of the Turks, 
an officer appeared who conducted me back into the town. 
After sundry intensely irritating vicissitudes, and after 
losing my temper intentionally and unintentionally a 
number of times, I slept that night in a passable imitation 
of a hotel, and in a bed which was the cleanest thing I 
had seen for weeks. 



CHAPTER III 

TO AFION VIA CONSTANTINOPLE 

FROM this point onwards I don't intend to attempt 
to give a day-to-day account of my so j urn in 
Turkey. I will try to recall only those few events 
which seem to me of special interest, and confine myself, as 
I have done with few exceptions throughout this book, 
to those events of which I was an eye-witness. For there 
never was such a country for rumors and stories as 
Turkey, where few can read and news is passed from 
mouth to mouth. 

I stayed for two or three nights in the hotel at Aleppo, 
and while there was visited by a representative of an em- 
bassy — Dutch, I think — which had charge of British 
interests in those parts. I asked for shoes, socks, vest, 
pants, and a bath — particularly for a bath. He sent me 
some nondescript but most welcome articles of clothing, 
together with bright red Turkish slippers of the genuine 
Aleppo brand, which I still treasure. 

The bath was a much more difficult business. He 
advised me most strongly against the public baths, in 
which, he said, one was much more likely to catch 
typhoid than get clean, and as for a bath in the hotel, 

such a thing simply wasn't done. He was a Greek, I 

284 



TO AFION VIA CONSTANTINOPLE 285 

think, and seemed to find it difficult to sympathize with 
my desire. I stuck to my point, however, with obstinacy, 
although I knew I was already "beyond the stage when a 
bath could cleanse me. When he left me he gave instruc- 
tions in the hotel that I was to have a tub of warm water. 
What a request ! The hotel was shocked, and most 
properly refused to countenance such an outrage on its 
premises. I waited for an hour or two in my dormitory, 
for there were half a dozen beds in the room, and Turkish 
officers used to drop in at odd hours for a sleep; but as 
no bath appeared, I started to forage for one. There was 
no sentry to be seen, and I made my way into the back- 
yard, commandeered a bucket, and amidst universal pro- 
test went back with a pail of water to my room. Then, 
in the middle of the floor, watched the while through the 
half-open door by the outraged members of the hotel /staff, 
I proceeded to wash myself section by section. It was as 
I had suspected. A bath in cold water was precious little 
use to me. But how could it be otherwise, since for the 
last fortnight I had been in close contact with people 
who live year in and year out covered with lice? It is 
disgusting to have to refer to these things, but it is not 
possible to appreciate life in Turkey unless one realizes 
that ninety-nine out of every hundred people one meets 
are crawling with these loathsome vermin. I was told 
one very good tip, which is to "keep them on the move." 
The louse lives and multiplies inside the shirt or vest 
and next the skin. The scheme is to put on your shirt 
inside out. Then he has to make his way back again to 
the inside, and just before he has got comfortably settled 



286 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

down you turn jour shirt back again and "keep him on 
the move." Of course it is considered rather eccentric 
to change jour shirt inside out everj daj or two instead 
of everj month or two, but I disregarded this and, I must 
own, found the method most efficacious. They were lean, 
owing to too much exercise and too little nourishment, and 
it certainly interfered to some extent with breeding. I 
'apologize for the foregoing, and will try to keep off the 
subject in future. When one is condemned to be unclean 
with these pests, one can either shudder with disgust and 
shame, or try to laugh. 

The journey from Aleppo to Constantinople lasted a 
fortnight or more, and I traveled the whole way in com- 
pany with Jews. Just before this, orders had been issued 
for the arrest of all the Jews in Palestine, whatever posi- 
tion they might hold. This was a result, I believe, of 
our declaration that after the war Palestine should once 
more be the national home of the Jewish race. Very many 
of the best doctors in the Turkish army are Jews ; many 
of these posts in the censor's office and in the commissariat 
department where efficiency is necessary, but the hope of 
honor small, were held by Jews. They were all arrested, 
on no charge whatsoever, and dispatched under armed' 
guards to Constantinople, being treated, in some cases, on 
the same footing as prisoners-of-war — in other cases as 
spies or rebels. There was one officer who traveled part 
of the way with me. He was filled with shame and bitter- 
ness at his treatment. He had fought at Gallipoli and 
most of the battles in Palestine. He had been twice 
wounded, twice decorated by the Turks, and once by the 



TO AFION VIA CONSTANTINOPLE 287 

Germans with, the Iron Cross, and now he was returning 
as a suspect, with a sentry with a fixed bayonet at his 
heels whenever he moved. They had made a rebel of an 
efficient servant, for he prayed night and day for the 
downfall of the Turks. 

The Jew with whom I traveled most of the time had 
been for some years in the censor's office at Haifa on the 
Palestine coast. He was an inoffensive, clever, and kind 
little fellow, and I last caught sight of him in the most 
unpleasant section of the Constantinople jail. Poor fel- 
low ! I am afraid he found me a bad traveling companion. 
He was all for conciliation, and advocated judicious brib- 
ery to increase our comforts, while I was as irritable and 
unreasonable as only a tired, ill, and disappointed man 
can be. 

In the early days of the war there was only one bad 
road, which zigzagged through the Taurus Mountains. 
Later, the Germans organized an efficient motor lorry 
service with German drivers and mechanics, for machinery 
of any sort is quite beyond Turkish intelligence. When 
we passed through, the narrow gauge railway had been 
working for some time and they were making good progress 
with the broad gauge line, which, would improve enor- 
mously the Turkish efficiency on the Mesopotamia and 
Palestine fronts. Thousands of men were working in the 
cuttings and widening the tunnels. In particular, I 
remember one great bridge, with four huge stone pillars 
rising 200 to 300 feet from a gorge below. It seemed a 
marvel of engineering in that wild land. It was three 
parts finished, and I believe the whole line was completed 



288 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

just about the time of the Armistice. It must have been 
not the least of the many bitter blows this war has brought 
to Germany, that after so much labor, ingenuity, and 
money expended on the Bagdad line, they abandoned the 
work to their enemies at the moment of its successful 
conclusion. 

We traveled through the Taurus in open trucks on the 
narrow gauge line, and on the passengers an incessant 
shower of sparks descended from the engine, which burnt 
wood, as do nearly all engines between Mecca and Con- 
stantinople. The scenery is wild and wonderful. Great 
peaks, grim and ragged with straggling pine trees, tower 
to the clouds, while the train crawls round the edge of 
precipices where a stone dropped from the carriage window 
would fall a sheer thousand feet or more into the gorge 
below. 

At one point on the journey over the Taurus the line 
passes through an extremely long tunnel, where all pas- 
sengers would inevitably have been asphyxiated by our 
wood-burning engine. Owing no doubt to the fact that 
Germans and not Turks were in charge, this had been 
foreseen, and steam-containing engines, much on the prin- 
ciple of the thermos flask, had been substituted. They 
had no boilers or furnaces, but were filled up with sufficient 
steam before each journey. 

I met many of our men on the way through. They 
were wonderfully cheerful and optimistic, and many had 
an amused and pitying tolerance for the inefficiencies of 
tbe Turk, though when one had heard their tales, one 



TO AFION VIA CONSTANTINOPLE 289 

realized that thej were just survivors and that 75 per cent, 
had died under the treatment. 

To live with the Turk one must laugh at him, for other- 
wise one would go mad with rage. They complained of 
malaria and lack of food. Incredible as it may seem, 
many of them occupied posts of considerable responsibility, 
being in charge of power stations and repair depots on 
the route. 

On the whole, the Germans whom they had met had 
treated them well. There were certain damnable excep- 
tions: no mitigating circumstance could here be pleaded, 
for calculated and intentional brutality and not national 
inefficiency was here the cause. A moderately civilized 
Turk was once accused by an English officer of allowing 
English prisoners under him to die in thousands. "We 
treated your men," answered the Turk, "exactly as we 
treated our own soldiers." Exactly ! The food and treat- 
ment that will kill Turkish peasants by tens will kill 
Europeans by thousands. As well expect a bulldog to 
thrive on a jackal's fare. 

With the German rank and file, the motor drivers and 
mechanics, our men made friends quickly. They had a 
common bond of friendship — hatred and contempt for the 
Turk. At one station where our train was standing after 
dark a man entered my carriage. I was alone for the 
moment; for my guard, who irritated me beyond endur- 
ance, being stupid even for a Turk, and who only kept 
strict watch on me every other day and never at night, 
had gone in search of food. The man had on a very dirty 
but German-looking uniform, and surprised me when he 



290 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

addressed me in good English. He was an English 
Tommy and asked me if I would like some food in his 
mess. He was spare man on one of the German lorries, 
and his fellows would be delighted to see me. It was only 
a couple of hundred yards away. In a small dark hut, 
by the light of a candle, four German motor drivers and 
an English Tommy offered me hospitality, and I have 
never met more generous or cheery hosts. Our Tommy 
seemed on excellent terms with them, and swore to me that 
they were topping good fellows. We cursed the Turks 
together, swopped yarns, whilst partaking of most excel- 
lent German rations. — tea, soup, German army bread, 
cheese, and butter. I went back to my carriage feeling 
much cheered and once more in possession of my temper. 
Only for a moment, however, for my blithering fool of a 
Turkish guard, who was hunting wildly for me under the 
seat, grabbed me as I entered with a cry of triumph. 

From the Taurus to Constantinople, about a ten days' 
journey, we traveled in very dirty and extremely crowded 
second-class carriages, and all that time we had to sleep 
sitting up while I longed above anything in this world to 
lie down, for I was very tired, and my bones ached with 
sitting. The coach next to ours was occupied by a Ger- 
man general and his retinue. Some of the smart young 
A.D.O.'s condescended to speak to me once or twice; and 
once, when we had been traveling a week together, the 
general sent one of them to me with food. I thanked 
him, but. refused it, saying I had sufficient money to buy 
what I needed. 

The haughty and insolent attitude of those Germans 



TO AFION VIA CONSTANTINOPLE 291 

towards their Turkish allies gave me the greatest pleasure 
from every point of view. I was no longer surprised that 
the Turks hated the Germans. Success and efficiency was 
the Germans' only claim to respect, and when the debacle 
came small mercy was shown by the Turks to starving 
and beaten German battalions and none to stragglers. 
After the victory of Allenby in Palestine, trains full of 
starving Germans came through Afion Hissar, with hun- 
dreds clinging to the roofs and buffers and not daring to 
get down to beg or buy food, for fear either of being 
murdered or of losing their places on the train. They 
actually sent a message to the English prisoners^-of-war in 
the town of Afion, asking for safe conduct to buy food. 
I had left the prison camp by that time, but I believe the 
Germans were told that if a good party came they would 
be quite safe. Of course by that time, October 1918, 
English officers took no further notice of their Turkish 
sentries and wandered about where they would. The 
whole position was Gilbertian beyond the wildest dreams 
of that genius. 

During the four years that the Teuton was lord in Asia 
Minor, whenever a German saw a Turk in close proximity 
he kicked him, either metaphorically or actually, usually 
the latter, and the Turk submitted — partly because he 
admired the German efficiency and fighting powers, but 
chiefly because he had to. "He who would sup with the 
devil needs a long spoon," and it's precious little soup 
the Turk got out of that unholy alliance. 

The Turk cannot understand how a man by shutting 
himself in an office and writing on pieces of paper can 



292 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

cause all the trains to run to time and armies to be equipped 
or fed. It is beyond bis intelligence, and be can but 
wonder. Tbe English, French, Germans, and Americans 
not only have these wonderful powers, but in a scrap they 
fight like the devil. In the Greek and the Armenian the 
Turk recognizes this same power of organization, at closer 
quarters this time, for the Greek and Armenian rob and 
out-manceuvre him in his own bazaar. This is intolerable 
to him, for he knows he is a better man than they are in 
a fight. If he meets them in the open with a sword in- 
stead of a pen they will go on their knees to him and squeal 
for mercy. This strikes me as pretty reasonable from a 
Turkish point of view. The Turks' commercial methods 
are rather crude: "Let some one else make money, then 
murder him and take it." If we stop them from murder- 
ing Armenians, the Turks will starve. 

On arriving at Constantinople we crossed to the Euro- 
pean side. Our escort, as I might have expected, then 
spent several hours, to my intense annoyance, wandering 
about the streets, not having the faintest idea of where to 
go or what to do. At length, after many weary waits, and 
after an interview with Enver's chief executioner and 
torturer, who looked a real devil, I parted company with 
my escort (I think the relief was mutual) and found 
myself in the great military prison. I was put into a 
room with two flying men from the Mesopotamia front 
and an Italian count, who expected to be hanged every 
day for spying, but was most cheerful nevertheless. The 
room was about 9 feet square, but as it had four beds in 
it, there was not much room to walk about. However, 



TO AFION VIA CONSTANTINOPLE 293 

as far as I am concerned, I have no complaint to make 
of my treatment at Constantinople. It was a blessed relief 
to be left in peace after that train journey, and we were 
quite decently fed. The Dutch embassy sent me in clean 
clothes and bedding, for which may they ever be blessed! 
Also I had a Turkish bath in the town, and by burning 
my old clothes got rid of the lice. But if we, considering 
that we were prisoners-of-war, were tolerably comfortable 
in that place, there were many poor devils who were not. 
Every day we were allowed an hour's exercise in the 
prison yard, a not unpleasant sunny place where there 
was ample room for walking exercise. Erom here there 
was a perfectly gorgeous view of Pera and the Golden 
Horn. Our room was on the second floor, and, as we 
passed through the lower portions to reach the yard, starv- 
ing, ragged, lice-covered wretches yammered at us from 
behind bars. Turkish military criminals, we believed they 
were. Poor devils! A friend of mine, an officer and 
usually a truthful man, who had been imprisoned in a 
different part of this building, swore to me that Thurs- 
day was torture day, and every Thursday he used to hear 
the shrieks of the victims. I believe him myself. 

After a week in this prison nearly all the British prison- 
ers were moved to Psamatia. I was very pleased to come 
across Lee and Austin once more. They gave an amusing 
account of the court of inquiry which was held at 
Afule after my escape. They had made the journey in 
comparative comfort, having come across Kemal Bey, the 
military governor of El Karak, who had been so good 
to us when we were first captured. He was once more 



294 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

extremely good to them, but took a gloomy view of what 
would happen to me if I were recaptured. Why I was 
not punished for my escape I have never found out for 
certain. 

At Psamatia I found means to send a private and un- 
censored letter to my people. Even in these days I think 
it as well to draw a veil over the methods employed to 
this end. It was not a route by which military informa- 
tion could be sent. To this letter I added a note to my 
bankers telling them to cash my cheques drawn under my 
assumed name of A. J. Everard. If I had known the 
Turks as I know them now, I should have realized that 
such a precaution was unnecessary. They usually recorded 
our names phonetically, in Turkish characters, and to the 
last expressed surprise and incredulity when a prisoner 
stated that his name was the same as his father's name. 
Of course the difference between Christian names and 
surnames was quite beyond them, and it was useless to 
attempt to explain. 

During the ten rather interesting days which we spent 
at Psamatia we visited St. Sophia and explored the old 
town. A small bribe enabled one to wander with the sentry 
almost where one would on the European side, and to buy 
in the bazaars a number of small things which greatly 
added to the comfort of our lives. At the end of that time 
nearly all of us were moved to camps in the interior. 
Half a dozen other officers and myself, after a three days' 
train journey, arrived once more at Afion-Karah-Hissar, 
which I had passed through three weeks before on the way 
up to Constantinople. It is here that the Smyrna line joins 



TO AFION VIA CONSTANTINOPLE 295 

the Constantinople-Bagdad railway, and it was here that I 
remained for the next six months, till about a fortnight 
before the Armistice. 

Others have already written of the life in prison camps 
in Turkey, and I shall not attempt any description. We 
lived in houses which once had belonged to Armenians. 
The Armenians had been "removed" — in nine cases out 
of ten a Turkish euphemism for murdered. The houses 
were quite bare of all furniture, most of them were in 
advanced state of dilapidation, and they were all very dirty 
and overrun with bugs. 

The first thing that every prisoner must do is to buy 
himself tools and wood and string, and make himself a 
suite of furniture, and then open the first battle in an 
almost ceaseless warfare against the bugs. One officer of 
the merchant service in former days said that he was too 
hard an old sea dog to be worried by bugs — he would just 
disregard them. After a few weeks he was very weak 
and pale. His bed was brought out of doors, and boiling 
water poured into the crevices, and a vast quantity of 
well-fed bugs were discovered who had been draining him 
of blood. 

We bought our food in the bazaar, and our menu was 
very simple and monotonous. However much I ate I 
never seemed to get any nourishment out of it, and all 
the time felt weak and ill. For money we cashed cheques 
at the rate of 13 lira for £10. As a lira was worth about 
two shillings at pre-war prices, living, in spite of its 
simplicity, was most expensive. To help us out, officers 



296 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

were given an allowance from the Dutch Embassy of 18 
lira a month. 

We passed our time, like all prisoners-of-war, working, 
reading (for there was a good library), carpentering, writ- 
ing and acting plays, and towards the end, when we had 
matters more our own way, playing hockey or cricket. 

It is hard to compare my Turkish with my German 
experiences as a prisoner. The whole position was so 
very different. It must be remembered that I only speak 
of a Turkish prison camp as I saw it — that is to say, 
during the seven months which preceded the Armistice. 
If we compare Anon with Clausthal, which in 1916 was 
one of the best camps in Germany, I think there is no 
doubt whatever that any man would have preferred to be 
a prisoner in the German camp. We had more freedom 
in Afion, but that was more than counterbalanced by the 
fact that we lived in Germany in close proximity to 
civilization. Our letters and parcels came regularly and 
quickly, and only those who have been prisoners can 
understand what that means. When, however, I think of 
Eort 9, Ingolstadt, in comparison with Afion, I find that 
I look back on the German prison almost with pleasure — 
certainly with pride — while I loathe to write or think of 
the Turkish camp where there were no real hardships, at 
any rate whilst I was there. 

Those who had been prisoners for a long time had suf- 
fered much; and we later prisoners had some difficulty 
in appreciating the attitude which was adopted by most of 
the camp toward® certain things. When I first came to 
the camp, escaping was looked upon almost as a crime 



TO AFION VIA CONSTANTINOPLE 297 

against your fellow-prisoners. One officer stated openly 
that lie would go to considerable lengths to prevent an 
attempt to escape, and there were many who held he was 
right. There is much to be said on the side of those who 
took this view. Though it was childishly simple to escape 
from the camp, to get out of the country was considered 
next to impossible. On the face of it, it did seem pretty 
difficult. An attempt to escape brought great hardship 
and even danger on the rest of the camp; for the Turks 
had made a habit of strafing, with horrible severity, the 
officers of the camp from which a prisoner had escaped. 
This point of view, to one who had been a prisoner in 
Fort 9, Ingolstadt, where we lived but to escape, was hard 
to tolerate, and I am now convinced that this anti-escaping 
attitude was wrong. It seems to me to take too narrow 
a view of the question ; quite apart from the fact, generally 
accepted I believe, that prisoners-of-war are inclined to 
deteriorate mentally and morally when they settle down 
to wait, in as great comfort as possible, but with a feeling 
of helplessness, for a peace which weekly seemed farther 
off. It seems to me that we owed it to our self-respect 
and to our position as British officers to attempt to escape, 
and to go on attempting to escape, in spite of all hardships. 
It used to amuse me sometimes to think what would have 
happened if the prisoners of Fort 9 could have been set 
down as prisoners in Afion-Karah-Hissar. They would 
certainly have marched out in a body and taken pot luck 
with the brigands. There would have been nothing to 
prevent them. To recapture them would have been a next 
to impossible task. Many brigands and deserters would 



298 TKEl ESCAPING CLUB 

have joined them. In fact, I think this would have been 
quite a nice little diversion in Asia Minor. A hundred 
armed, determined, and disciplined men could have gone 
almost where they would and done what they chose in 
Asia Minor. 

About the time I came to Afion, a number of young 
lately captured officers, mainly flying men, were also 
brought in. Many of the older prisoners, who had sup- 
pressed their wish to escape in deference to the opinion of 
the majority of the camp, joined hands with the later 
prisoners and made preparation to escape. I know of at 
least twenty officers who had every intention of departing 
in the spring of 1918. Most of the plans were to my mind 
rather crude, and consisted of walking over 250 miles of 
almost impossible country and hoping for a boat. We 
were sent from England, concealed most cunningly in post 
cards, maps of the route to Smyrna and a method of get- 
ting out of the country from the neighborhood. Tempted 
by this, three stout-hearted fellows tried to walk to 
Smyrna — a most terrible undertaking. They met brig- 
ands, and one of them was shot, probably in the leg, and 
left wounded on the hills. The other two were stripped, 
driven from their wounded comrade with rifles, and re- 
turned to the camp in a semi-nude condition. Nothing 
has since been heard of the third, and to the best of my 
belief the Turks made no effort whatever to save him. 
His two companions and the senior officers of the camp did 
their utmost to induce the Turks to send a few men to the 
place where he had last been seen alive. To take a little 
trouble on the off-chance of saving a human life is not the 



TO AFION VIA CONSTANTINOPLE 299 

sort of thing that appeals to a Turk ; so several prisoners 
offered to go on parole to the place at their own risk, 
which to unarmed men would have been considerable. But 
this was forbidden. 

Bribery seemed to me the one method which had a real 
chance of success in Turkey. An officer, whom I will call 
David, and I first of all opened negotiations with a Greek 
to be allowed to take the place of the stokers on the Symrna 
train. The Greek's courage failed, however, and that fell 
through. Then we got into touch with the Arabs who 
wished to desert. They agreed to produce horses and 
arms ; and four armed men on horseback would have had 
no difficulty in going anywhere. When the whole thing 
had been settled and it was only a question of final details 
and deciding the day to go, the second commission came 
to the camp in order to select sick officers for exchange. 
As there were very few, if any, sick officers left in the 
camp, and as the examination was a pure farce, David 
and I thought we should get a more comfortable journey 
to Smyrna by bribing the doctor. This was completely 
successful, and cost me £15. On the whole, I think if 
you went the right way about it, it was less difficult to 
escape successfully from Afion than from most of the 
German camps. 

N.B. — For a description of the life in the prison camps of Afion- 
Karah-Hissar, I can recommend A Prisoner in Turkey, by John Still 
(published by John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd.). 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BOUND TOUK CONCLUDED 

THERE is one incident in our otherwise uneventful 
journey to Smyna which seems to me worthy of 
record. We were passing through a particularly 
wild and uninhabited stretch of country, when the train 
halted just after it had passed a small bridge over a 
ravine. I and a friend who spoke Turkish descended to 
stretch our legs, and saw standing on the bridge a very 
ragged sentry, so we walked back to question him. He 
had been there, the solitary guardian of that bridge, for 
four years. Two years before this he had somehow seen 
or heard from his wife, and had learnt that three of his 
four sons were dead and the other was fighting. Since 
then he had had no news of his family. The only food 
he received were two loaves of bread thrown out of the 
train twice a week, and during these four years he had 
lived and slept in the clothes, now ragged and rotten, 
which he was wearing. He scarcely spoke to any one from 
year's end to year's end, and lived perpetually on the 
border of starvation. He only prayed God to blast Enver's 
eyes, because he was a year and a half in arrears with 
his pay of ^d. a day or so. Thank God I was not born 

to be a Turkish territorial. In the Turkish army, I 

300 



THE ROUND TOUR CONCLUDED 301 

suppose, this fellow would be envied, as having a nice 
quiet job on the lines of communication. 

On arriving at Smyrna we were told, to our great 
astonishment, for we had given no parole of any sort, 
that we were free to go where we would and do what we 
liked. 

By the kindness of the American School Missionaries 
the mission school buildings had been thrown open to the 
officers and Tommies. The place was beautifully clean 
but rather crowded, and as I desired solitude above all 
things, I packed a rucksack and set out to test how far 
our freedom extended. There was no one to stop me at 
the station, so I took the train to a small village in the 
hills above Smyrna and spent two most enjoyable days 
in a country hotel. 

The population of Smyrna seems to be the result of 
inter-marriage between all the nations under the sun. 
Perhaps there is rather more Greek blood about than any 
other. They speak no langauge well, and usually five 
or six badly. They are a timorous, effeminate community, 
very immoral and untrustworthy, and seem to live in a 
perpetual and perhaps justifiable fear of being massacred. 
They all hated the Turk much but feared him more, and 
were very friendly to us. Once I had discovered that I 
was really free to go where I would, it seemed to me 
that I was in rather a false position. The fact that we 
were not guarded in any way made me no less anxious 
to get out of Turkey ; and the fact that the Turks had not 
•asked for our parole, which most of us would have re- 
fused, in no way relieved us of the duty of escaping if 



302 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

we could. There were other considerations, however. A 
small minority of the British officers and men now collected 
at Smyrna for exchange were really sick men ; and several 
of us, who were ardent escapers, did not consider that we 
were justified in bringing possible punishment on these 
men by escaping. We therefore decided to wait for the 
exchange ship and to go by that, so long as it was not 
necessary to give any sort of parole not to fight against 
the Germans. In the meantime we prepared a method of 
escape by which we could clear out of Asia Minor if ever 
the Turks changed their mind and attempted to send us 
back to camps in the interior. It was not so* easy to 
find a method of getting away as one might have expected. 
Nearly every one in the place would take a bribe without 
hesitation; but they were more likely to betray you at 
the last moment than do any job in which there was the 
slightest taint of danger. That is the worst of these half- 
breeds; they have no morals of any sort. The Turk has 
his own peculiar morals, and whatever he may be he is 
not a coward. If you go the right way about it I be- 
lieve all Turks can be bribed. A good deal of intrigue 
and preparation is sometimes necessary; but once he 
has accepted money he seems to consider it dishonest to 
fail to carry out his part of the bargain. Eventually one 
of us got into touch with our secret intelligence system and 
made arrangements' for three or four of us to get away 
if it became necessary. However, the exchange ship was 
expected any day, so we settled down to wait for it. 

When we had been there about ten days David came 
to me with an extraordinary story. He said that a Turk 



THE ROUND TOUR CONCLUDED 303 

tad approached him and suggested that there should be a 
revolution in Smyrna. Apparently there were a number 
of Turks in Smyrna who believed that the Turkish em- 
pire was completely done, and that the sooner peace was 
made with the Entente the better. By a revolution in 
Smyrna they hoped to force the hands of the Government 
in Constantinople. They hoped, by handing over the 
place to the English, that Smyrna would be left, when 
peace came, as an independent state. Above all, I think 
they feared that it should go to Greece. However, I am 
not sure that these were the real motives, or all the motives, 
of the proposed revolution. The motives were a small 
matter to us. What we had to consider was— (a) Was 
it possible? '(b) Was it desirable from a military or 
political point of view ? We decided to make all prepara- 
tion, but to refuse active participation till we had informa- 
tion that a revolution in Smyrna was desired by tbe 
British. The Turks who brought this proposal to David 
said the job the Turkish revolutionaries would undertake 
would be to tie up or murder the commander of the gar- 
rison, the military governor, the chief of police, and a few 
other important personages. David was to select a party 
of men from amongst the British and hold the railway 
with a couple of machine guns, incidentally cutting all 
the telephone and telegraph wires. My job was to capture 
the Austrian aerodrome just above the town, and then 
to fly one of their machines to Mitylene and report events 
to the English. "What about the garrison?" David had 
a** "That is all right," said the Turk; "we have a 



304 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

Mullah who will preach, a holy war against the Germans, 
and the garrison will all come over to us." 

The scheme seemed pretty mad at first, but the more 
we considered it the more possible did it seem. David 
felt certain he could do his part, and I went up and in- 
spected the aerodrome, and made a number of inquiries 
about the personnel and the guard. It seemed that with 
about a dozen men there would be absolutely no difficulty 
in capturing the aerodrome, probably without bloodshed. 
We considered that if the Turks could do their part — 
and they were perfectly confident they could — we 
could capture the town and hold it for at least a fort- 
night. If the wires were cut we could more or less rely 
on the fact that for a week or so it would be considered 
only a normal breakdown of the line. The Turk said that 
the nearest troops were ten days' march away, and there 
was no rolling stock to bring many troops by train. Such 
was the rough outline of the scheme, though I may not 
have got all the details quite correct. 

We now refused to move any further in the matter till 
we got into touch with the British and learnt that a revolu- 
tion was desirable, and that there were ships and troops 
to take over the town when and if we were successful. 
To disarm criticism and indicate that I am now more or 
less sane, I am prepared to admit now that we must have 
been perfectly mad to entertain the idea for a moment. 

About this time a certain English colonel turned up in 
Symrna and put up at the best hotel. He had nothing 
whatever to do with the exchange of prisoners; and in 
order to explain his presence I must digress here to give 



THE ROUND TOUR CONCLUDED 305 

some account, probably rather inaccurate, of bis previous 
adventures in Turkey. 

A month or two before the Armistice the colonel had 
been a prisoner-of-war in a Turkish prison camp about 
100 miles from Constantinople. From there he had escaped 
by means of a judicious mixture of bribery and audacity 
and made his way to Constantinople. For over a month 
he lay hid in the town, and at the end of that time had 
prepared a complete plan of escape. The details of where 
and how he was going is not part of this story. On the 
night on which he had made all preparations to depart 
he received a note from the Minister of the Interior of the 
Turkish Empire saying that he, the Minister, had heard 
that the colonel was about to escape, and would be much 
obliged if he would call on him before departing. As I 
said before, it is no use being surprised at anything in 
Turkey; but that it should be possible that, while one 
department was searching high and low for an escaped 
prisoner, another department not only knew where he was 
but when he intended to escape, throws an interesting side- 
light on Turkish methods of government. The only ex- 
planation seems to be that each department has an entirely 
independent secret service of its own. The colonel decided 
that he would go and see the Minister, as he had really 
not much choice in the matter. This interview between 
a prisoner-of-war in the middle of an attempt to escape 
and a Minister of an enemy country must be almost unique, 
dealing, as I believe it did, with the probable attitude of 
the Entente towards certain aspects of the coming armistice. 

At the end of two hours the Minister thanked the 



306 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

colonel courteously and intimated that lie would not hinder 
him further in his attempt to escape. "That won't do 
at all," said the colonel; "you have already spoilt my 
plans, and it is now up to you to get me out of the 
country." 

"I will send you out by aeroplane," said the Minister, 
and went to the telephone. In a short time he returned 
and stated that, to his great regret, it was impossible to 
obtain an aeroplane for the purpose, as they were all in 
the hands of the Germans. 

The Turks are notoriously incompetent as aviators, and 
this was only to be expected. As an aeroplane was out 
of the question, the Minister did the next best thing and 
wrote out for the colonel an official "passe-partout," 
stamped all over and signed by the highest powers in the 
land. Armed with this document the colonel was no longer 
a poor prisoner-of-war. He was more than free; he was 
a power in the land of Turkey. All officialdom would bow 
down before him. So he took the train to Symrna and 
put up in the best hotel. 

Soon after his arrival David and I demtermined to seek 
his advice in the matter of the revolution, so we intro- 
duced him to the spokesman of the Turkish conspirators, 
and the three of us met one night in the colonel's private 
sitting-room and discussed the question from every point 
of view. The colonel viewed the proposed revolution in 
the same light as we had done, as a wild but not impos- 
sible scheme, only to be put into practice if we received 
definite information that such a thing was desired by the 
British. We spent the next day or two in futile attempts 



THE ROUND TOUR CONCLUDED 307 

to find a boatman (they were nearly all Greeks) sufficiently 
honest, courageous, or patriotic to be worth bribing. 

Quite suddenly it was announced that the Turkish 
armistice commissioners had arrived in Smyrna, whence 
they would leave to go either to Mitylene or to a British 
battleship, in order to undertake negotiations. The colonel 
and David, with the help of the colonel's all-powerful pass, 
made their way to the presence of the commissioners, and 
somehow or other persuaded them that it would be a good 
thing to take the colonel with them when they went. They 
left early one morning in a large motor boat, the colonel 
promising to send us back word if a revolution was desir- 
able. No word came through to that effect, and less than a 
week later the arrival of the exchange ship was announced. 
On board the ship we were once more assailed with 
doubts on the question of parole. Should we be eligible 
to fight against the Germans ? We nearly got off the ship 
at Mitylene with the idea of taking a sailing boat back 
to Smyrna, surrendering to the Turks, and escaping in a 
legitimate way the same night, as I think we probably 
could have done. We decided against it, however, after 
consultation with a distinguished general and the captain 
of the ship. Our advisers pointed out, firstly, that as far 
as they knew we had given no parole not to fight against 
the Germans; and, secondly, that there seemed every 
prospect that the war with Germany as well as with Turkey 
would be over before we could return to Europe. We left 
Smyrna on November 1st, 1918, when I had been a pris- 
oner in Turkey for seven and a half months, so that, in 
Germany and Turkey together, I had been a prisoner-of- 



308 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

war for under eighteen months. Quite enough. Tech- 
nically, I think I may claim to have escaped from Turkey 
as well as from Germany, hut I am not particularly proud 
of the Turkish escape. 

There is one further incident which happened after I 
had been enjoying the luxuries of Cairo and Alexandria 
for a fortnight, and then I have finished. 

It occurred to me that it would be interesting to visit 
the officer prisoners-of-war camp between Alexandria and 
Cairo. I got on the telephone and asked for permission, 
and as I was speaking something prompted me to ask if by 
any chance there was a German flying captain by name 
of Franz Walz in the camp. Yes, there was. This struck 
me as most humorous, and also a unique opportunity of 
repaying some of Hauptmann Walz's kindness to me when 
I had been a prisoner in his power. My visit to the camp 
was extraordinarily interesting. The place was a high 
wire enclosure on bare and very sandy soil. It was clean 
and well ordered, and most of the wooden huts had been 
made to look quite pretty by small gardens round them. 
For all that, it was not a place in which I should have 
cared to have been a prisoner. Not that there seemed 
much to complain about, except that it must have been 
pretty dull. The wooden huts were well built and of the 
right type for the climate and the country: the prisoners 
seemed to have a reasonable amount of liberty outside the 
camp, with the possibilities of bathing from time to time, 
and they could purchase books and clothes with few re- 
strictions, but discipline was a bit too strict for my liking. 
Quite right from the point of view of the commandant, 



THE ROUND TOUR CONCLUDED 309 

but I can't help looking at it from a prisoner's point of 
view. When I asked Walz, he told me some of their 
causes for complaint, but they seemed to me pretty insig- 
nificant, compared at any rate with those things we had 
to complain about at Ingolstadt; and I told him so. I 
was told that Walz had been rather truculent when first 
captured, and I respected him for it. ]STo decent man takes 
kindly to being a prisoner-of-war. However, he was very 
friendly to me, and gave me tea in his mess and intro- 
duced me to a number of German officers, many of whom 
had been captured off the Konigsberg, and three or four 
had been among my hosts in the German flying corps mess 
at Afule. They seemed a particularly nice lot of fellows, 
though there were one or two about the place to whom 
I was not introduced whose looks I did not like, and the 
feeling was obviously reciprocated. 

Walz was not unnaturally very depressed both at his 
own and his country's position. The terms of the Armis- 
tice had just been published, and the prisoners ridiculed 
the idea that Germany would accept them. They only 
saw our newspapers and did not believe them — prisoners- 
of-war are the same all the world over — and had no con- 
ception of Germany's desperate condition. I did not 
attempt to enlighten them much, as it seemed to me tactful 
and generous, remembering my own experiences to keep 
off the subject as much as possible. Germany accepted the 
terms the next day. Poor fellows ! It must have come to 
them as a terrible shock. I found that Walz had been 
told, when first captured, of my own experiences as a 
prisoner in Germany, and just before I left he took ir.e 



310 THE ESCAPING CLUB 

aside and said, "Can I possibly escape from a place like 
this ? What would you do here ? and if you got out, where 
would you escape to?" I said that it seemed a most 
difficult camp to get out of, and if a prisoner got out there 
were thousands of miles to cross before reaching a friendly 
country. As a matter of fact, as I told the commandant 
afterwards, it looked to me as if any prisoner who could 
learn a few words of English could bluff himself out of 
the camp any day in broad daylight. A man in English 
officer's uniform had only to call to the sentry to open one 
of the many gates and I think it would have been opened. 
I may be wrong. There would have been no harm done 
and ample time to retreat, change clothes, and prove an 
alibi if the bluff were unsuccessful. The second difficulty 
— the distance, and where to go — was much more serious. 
The Aboukir aerodrome was within a couple of miles of 
the camp, and Walz's thoughts as an airman naturally 
turned in that direction. I was compelled to prevaricate 
and tell him that the aeroplanes there were all training 
machines and seldom had more than one hour's petrol on 
board, and also that the place was well guarded. At this 
discouraging news, I hope and believe he gave up all at- 
tempts to escape. He told me that two German airmen, 
who had been captured by the English shortly after my 
own capture, had reported that I had broken my parole 
when escaping. On hearing this Walz had taken consid- 
erable trouble in denying it, and I am most grateful to 
him for that, quite apart from the other kind things already 
referred to in this book which he did for me. I count 
Hauptmann Walz amor?' the many nice fellows whom I 



THE ROUND TOUR CONCLUDED 311 

met in this war. For his sake, and for the sake of the 
many kind acts done by Germans to our prisoners-of-war 
in Turkey, I can never agree to class all Germans together 
as brutes. Surely it will be better for the peace of the 
world if we admit that the majority of Germans in this 
war only did their duty and did it well. This attitude 
need in no wise lessen our dislike for the German national 
ideals of "Might is Right," "Deutschland iiber Alles," 
or our loathing for the inhuman and unforgivable way in 
which these ideals were pushed to their logical conclusion. 
If wars are to cease, future generations must find a "modus 
vivendi" with the Germans; and surely, having beaten 
them, we can afford to encourage their good points by 
recognition of them. The Turk, however, still remains 
to me the "unspeakable Turk." 



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